Licensed!

A lot has happened since the last time I posted. Spring is usually a crazy busy time for me anyway, not to mention finishing my teacher licensure program. Here’s an update:

• Completed student teaching! This was 15 weeks long and was awesome. I’ve heard horror stories about student teaching, but mine was not short of completely wonderful. I was lucky enough that I got to not only do my student teaching at my school –– the school where I have been working for the last three years –– but I also got to choose my cooperating teacher! My cooperating teacher has 13 years of experience and is someone I would be lucky to be even half as good as. 15 weeks went by in a flash!
• Took my tests….. all 7 of them! Okay, it was only 5, but two of them had 2 separate sections. Even so, for someone who has a pretty crummy track record for test-taking, I passed all of them with no problem. It was such a relief, and a huge task to check off my list.
• Finished and turned in my EdTPA! If you’re not familiar, the EdTPA is a massive portfolio that prospective teachers have to complete in order to showcase their skills and thinking in the classroom. This included filming myself teaching (during student teaching) a lesson that I had created all on my own. This took so much time and effort to complete. I got to the point after editing and editing and editing that I just said “I’m done… it’d better be good” and turned it in. After about a month of waiting, I’m happy to report that I scored well above my cutoff scores!
• Started applying for jobs! Once I finished and submitted my EdTPA, I could start applying for jobs. My licensure is to teach English Language Arts for grades 5–12, but I prefer to stay at the high school level. Fortunately, there were a few open positions at high schools in my area. In total, I applied to four high schools, and got three schools calling right away for interviews!
• I accepted a job! Like I mentioned, I had three schools that wanted interviews…. which happen to all fall on the SAME DAY. Yes, I had one interview at 11am, one at 2:30pm, and the last at 5:30pm. Talk about stressful! At least I didn’t have to find three different interview outfits 🙂 The day after these interviews, I had 2 1/2 offers (the 3rd school was like: “You’re in our top two and we just need to know where your mind is at). Ultimately, I accepted a position at my high school… you know, the one I’ve been working at. Happy can’t even begin to describe how I feel.
• Finished my teaching program courses! This was the last step before I was able to apply for my teaching license. Luckily, I only had to take one class during the spring semester. Working on our EdTPA was the main focus of this class, which was great because it gave us rough pacing to complete it. I had to submit my EdTPA scores to my professor to sign off on and I was done with the program!
• Signed my contract! After accepting the offer from my school, I just had to wait on the official offer and contract from the district. Of course, it was pending my license, but I was able to sign it before we left for summer. It was exciting knowing that I was going to be coming back in the fall and was able to celebrate with my coworkers before the long break.
• Applied for my teaching license! Once I had completed my tests, the EdTPA, and the program, all I had to do was officially apply for my teaching license. It took a couple of weeks for the license to come through, but once it did I sent it right over to my district to make it official-official 🙂

So, I’m officially licensed AND officially hired to teach in the fall. (Happy dance!) Last stop: master’s degree. I’m currently in two classes this summer, which will finish up in the next month, and have my last one in the fall. After this, I will be completely done with my classes AND will have a master’s degree!

Besides all this, the family is doing well and are all enjoying our summer (but not-so-secretly impatiently waiting for fall). Since I’ll only have one class, I’m hoping to get out to hunt a little more this year than I was able to the last couple. Even if I don’t, I think the extra time will do me good –– I haven’t had “nothing” in a while 🙂 That will be nice.

Take care!