Hiring Policy
Emergency License(s) Availability: Due to new legislation, North Carolina now offers a one-year emergency license. This license can be issued to an individual who "holds a bachelor's degree with coursework relevant to the requested licensure area, but has not successfully completed an educator preparation program." The emergency license can only be requested by the local board of education. Applicants for an emergency license must also meet other requirements such as preservice training prior to teaching.
Emergency License Validity Period: The license is valid for one year and is nonrenewable.
However, North Carolina does not require any of its teachers to pass a subject-matter test until the end of the second year of teaching if the test is taken at least once during the first year of teaching.
The state does require that teachers receive passing scores on the Praxis II subject-matter exam to obtain the standard professional 2 license, which a teacher may obtain usually after three years of teaching.
Award standard licenses to teachers only after they have passed all required subject-matter licensing tests.
All students are entitled to teachers who know the subject matter they are teaching. Permitting individuals who have not yet passed state licensing tests to teach neglects the needs of students, because it enables adults who may not be able to meet minimal state standards to earn teaching licenses. Licensing tests are an important minimum benchmark in the profession, and by not requiring such a test, North Carolina is abandoning one of the basic responsibilities of licensure. As such, in order to avoid putting students at risk, the state should require all teachers to pass subject-matter tests prior to entering the classroom as the teacher of record.
North Carolina was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts that enhanced this analysis.
6B: Provisional and Emergency Licensure
Teachers who have not passed content licensing tests place students at risk. While states may need a regulatory basis for filling classroom positions with a few people who do not hold full teaching credentials, many of the regulations permitting this put the instructional needs of children at risk, often year after year.[1] For example, schools can make liberal use of provisional certificates or waivers provided by the state if they fill classroom positions with instructors who have completed a teacher preparation program but have not passed their state licensing tests. These allowances are permitted for up to three years in some states. The unfortunate consequence is that students' needs are neglected in an effort to extend personal consideration to adults who cannot meet minimum state standards.[2]
While some flexibility may be necessary because licensing tests are not always administered with the needed frequency, making provisional certificates and waivers available year after year could signal that the state does not put much value on its licensing standards or what they represent. States accordingly need to ensure that all persons given full charge of children's learning are required to pass the relevant licensing tests in their first year of teaching, ideally before they enter the classroom. Licensing tests are an important minimum benchmark in the profession, and states that allow teachers to postpone passing these tests are abandoning one of the basic responsibilities of licensure.