SCS Newsletter - November 2017 (K-12 Certification)

So You Want to Become a Latin Teacher?: Updating the SCS Resource on Latin Teacher Certification Requirements

by Helen Cullyer

As the Washington Post has reported recently, there is a national teacher shortage across the US. For example, the Department of Education currently lists 40 states and the District of Columbia as facing a lack of qualified world language teachers. Unfortunately, this serious situation should not be news to Classicists. In 2015, Ronnie Ancona and Kathleen Durkin published this article in Amphora about the lack of certified Latin teachers in the US. As Ancona and Durkin note, many Classicists are not familiar with the certification (sometimes called licensure) procedures and requirements for Latin teachers in public schools in the US. These procedures and requirements vary by state. There are reciprocal agreements between some states, but requirements vary so widely that an individual certified in one state is not necessarily qualified to teach in another. Moreover, while some states are well-served by undergraduate and graduate programs in Classics that offer certification, others are not.

Thus the first hurdle for anyone wanting to teach Latin in public schools is simply understanding the requirements for certification in their state. State websites tend to be thorough but can be confusing. In order to address the need for basic information about licensure procedures in all 50 states, the SCS (then APA) Education Division developed this resource in 2011 that provides concise information about certification requirements in each state along with links to the relevant government websites. However, it has not been updated in six years. In summer 2017, the SCS office began work to revise the resource. It is a huge task, and two students have been instrumental in advancing this initiative. Summer intern Oliver Hughes undertook the painstaking work of checking all links to state government websites, noting if those links were broken or directed the user to the wrong page, and finding the new URLs where necessary. This Fall, we reached out to our network of SCS state legates in order to find out more about Latin certification in each state. Our graduate student assistant Stephanie Crooks is now in contact with teachers, and faculty who train teachers, in many states and with the assistance of our members we are filling out a Google doc, which will form the basis of a new report.

However, we need your help. We are still seeking information about Latin certification in the following states:

Alaska

Delaware

District of Columbia

Georgia

Idaho

Illinois

Iowa

Kansas

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Montana

North Carolina

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Texas

Vermont

Virginia

If you can help us with understanding and verifying the basic requirements for Latin certification in these states, or know someone who can, please contact the Executive Director (helen.cullyer@nyu.edu). Our goal is to publish a version of the updated resources in December 2017 or January 2018, but we do need additional information on the states above in order to finish the project.

Other Resources on Teaching and Teacher Certification:

The ACL’s placement service lists Latin teaching jobs in K-12 schools.
The National Latin Exam, CANE, CAMWS, and SCS all offer scholarships and awards that provide funding for students pursuing their certification.
The National Committee on Latin and Greek runs National Latin Teacher Recruitment Week in the first full week of March every year, and administers a mini-grant program for teacher recruitment initiatives that is funded by ACL and SCS.
If you would like to contact someone in your state to learn more about language teaching and do not know where to go, try one of the members of the National Committee of State Supervisors of Foreign Languages.

More November 2017 Newsletter Content