- April 25, 2024
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Public school teachers sometimes are required to compete continuing education to earn additional “endorsements” recognized by the state to keep their current positions or to remain competitive. This can be expensive, with course work and exams potentially as high as several thousand dollars.
"We pay them (NEFEC) millions of dollars; why are we charging teachers to take required endorsements?"
— COLLEEN CONKLIN, School Board member
In a School Board workshop Dec. 3, Flagler County School Board member Colleen Conklin asked what the district is doing to incentivize teachers to seek additional endorsements.
Diane Dyer, the district’s executive director of teaching and learning, said the district recently determined that a change in state law would require more than 70 of its teachers to earn a reading instruction endorsement.
“We can’t pay them any more for doing this, but they have to have it to maintain their jobs — otherwise they’ll be out of field,” Dyer said. “Once they’re out of field, they may have to take at least two courses a year toward their endorsement. So one way or the other, they have to get it.”
In that case, Dyer said, the district paid for the courses, which would have otherwise cost $240 each through the North East Florida Educational Consortium (NEFEC), or potentially about $2,000 if taken for college credist through a university. The school district is a member of NEFEC.
In other cases, teachers seeking additional endorsements might be on their own.
“I know we say we can’t pay them, but there’s really nothing that stops us from having additional incentives,” Conklin said. As to NEFEC, she added, “We pay them millions of dollars; why are we charging teachers to take required endorsements?”
Dyer said NEFEC’s policy is that teachers from member districts receive discounts on classes. Teachers can also take the classes through universities, but those are more expensive, Dyer said. Conklin noted, however, that when teachers take classes through universities, they’re usually receiving graduate level college credits for them, while they don’t get college credit if they go through NEFEC.
“If NEFEC wants to keep our business, they should come up with an articulation with a university so that when our teachers are paying for these courses, that they are getting graduate credit for it,” Conklin said.
