Video Transcript
Hi everybody this is Missy Wauneka with Teach For America New Mexico and I’m excited to bring you another Teach New Mexico resource about the benefits and pathways to becoming a teacher in New Mexico this video is meant to dig into the question “what am i qualified to teach in new mexico.”
This question can be kind of confusing, because it varies from state to state and it varies from age group to age group and subject area to subject area so we’re gonna take a look um kind of at the big picture and, as always,i invite you if you have specific questions to reach out and schedule a consultation with us.
So we’re going to start here just looking at a possible pathway from wanting to pursue teaching to actually getting your license and getting hired to teach in new mexico and this is an alternative licensure pathway um it’s not the only pathway you can do with these steps in in different orders but this is a way that i’ve coached a lot of people
Who didn’t study education in college to get their alternative license and then become a teacher in new mexico. So we’re gonna dig in specifically to this second step here that says determine what age slash subject you want to teach and qualify for so you’ll notice there’s two pieces there there’s the subject and age you want to teach and then also the piece about what you qualify for and ideally those two things match up so we’re going to take look at this table here that outlines for the different subjects and age groups what you need to get your two-year alternative license to add on an endorsement later on after you already have that two-year alternative license and then uh when it comes time to get your five-year level one license. So the alternative license is what you typically need right away in order to get started teaching and getting that training on the job. So if you are interested in teaching early childhood which is pre-k to three elementary which i’m calling k to 6 or special education you can get an alternative license in those areas as long as you have a bachelor’s degree with at least 30 credit hours in any subject so if it’s psychology communications business math the subject area doesn’t matter as much when you’re getting that alternative license the two-year alternative license in early childhood elementary or special education.
This piece about add-on endorsements, so that is after you get your license and then you want to add on that you might be qualified to teach math or science. So an endorsement means a specific qualification to teach in a certain subject area, and i left that one blank because it isn’t typical that early childhood elementary and special education teachers get endorsements unless they start teaching a specific subject area. So if you are getting one of those licenses and going to be teaching a self-contained classroom or just all of the subject areas to having the same group of kids all throughout the day or just sort of being a jack of all trades then you wouldn’t necessarily need to get an endorsement it is possible to get one but you wouldn’t need to get one so that’s why i left that off and then i put this piece here about what you eventually have to do at the end of two years or by the end of two years in order to be able to get that five year level one license. So you can get your initial alternative license in early childhood self-contained elementary or special education with a bachelor’s degree in any subject area and then by the end of two years you need to be prepared to provide documentation that you’ve completed an alternative licensure program and passed all of your practice assessments and so that would include an early childhood content test an elementary content test or a special education content test depending on which license you have. Moving to that next row most subject areas so if you are a middle school teacher a high school teacher or even a lower grade teacher but you’re you’re specifically teaching a certain subject area you want to have a bachelor’ degree and 24 credit hours in that subject area if it’s your first endorsement so the ped makes a specific set of rules for that very first endorsement that you get that you need to have those credit hours and then eventually be able to also pass the content area practice assessment
If you want to add on an endorsement so if you already have an endorsement and you want to add a second one it’s a little different in that case you either have to have the 24 credit hours or pass the subject area praxis test.
So I’m going to give you an example. Let’s say this is specific to my situation so this is an example about me. Let’s say I wanted to get hired to teach middle school math. In college i studied biochemistry don’t have 24 credit hours of math so when i’m getting my initial alternative license i want to make sure that i get an endorsement that matches an area where i do have 24 credit hours so my first endorsement is going to be science because i have a lot of science credits because my degree is biochemistry but i want to be a math teacher so in order to do that since i don’t have that number of credits. i would go take the subject area praxis assessment in math and i would send that test score that passing test score to the ped to add a math endorsement. So my first endorsement would be science and my add-on would be math which would allow me to teach a middle school math class and then by the end of two years, as i get ready to get that five-year level one license, i would also need to make sure to be able to pass that science practice so they’re gonna give me an initial two-year license with a science endorsement but when i go to get that five-year license i do need to submit documentation that i’ve also passed the scienc praxi test because for my first endorsement i need both credits and the test score i added i added a row for gifted t sol which is teaching english to speakers of other languages and bilingual down at the bottom here those are are very sought after and common endorsements that teachers want and i wanted to name that you can get those endorsements on any type of license but they do require specific coursework in that area and passing a assessment so they’re a little bit unique compared to the other endorsements i am going to actually take us now t the ped site so just like anything i share in these resources.
I always encourage everybody to double check at the peds website. There’s lots of great information there and i’m just providing other avenues for you to get that same Information, because it can be kind of confusing so i’m hoping that if you see a visual hear a video that it’ll really help you feel comfortable navigating the process but the same information is here and much more so i encourage everybody to check this out and what i wanted to show you is all the areas that you can get an endorsement added to your teaching license and if you click on any of these they go into greater specific details about the specific specific requirements or or courses that count toward that particular endorsement and i will leave it there.
Again, please, if you are at any point wanting additional support with figuring out what you are qualified to teach please schedule a consultation with me.