Update on the teaching front-

Well, I received my teaching permit in the mail a couple of days ago; I am officially a teacher now. The better news arrived in the mail on Monday. I am now considered a "Highly Qualified" teacher in the subjects of middle school math and science.


Here's the deal...Thanks to the whole NCLB (no child left behind) act by the Bush administration I was graduating with a degree that was useless if I wanted to teach middle school. Well, since I did my student teaching in 8th grade, it was going to be difficult to get a job teaching the younger kids. Even though I am endorsed by the state of Washington to teach K-8 and I have a Masters, I am not considered "Highly Qualified (HQ) to teach 7-8 grade. I am assuming that eventually Washington will change their endorsement to K-6 and 7-12 will be subject specific.

Anyway there were a couple of things I could do the become a HQ teacher. The simplest and cheapest was to take a Praxis test in that subject area. So I took the math and science tests in early June. Since I have an arts and humanities background I was pretty worried about passing the tests - but I did!!! Not by a huge margin ; ) but the important thing is I PASSED!!!

The bottom line is that I am A LOT more marketable now, and it should be much easier to get that first full-time job. There are usually 2 to 3 times MORE applicants for the English positions than the math or science positions.

So that's the update. I am still planning on subbing part-time next year, but now I feel more secure about my future.