So You Want to Be a Teacher…
Did you know the number of lateral entry teachers is growing year over year? According to NC DPI, there were 90, 638 teachers in North Carolina during the 2022-2023 school year. And of those, 11,136 were employed with a residency license. That means 12.3% of all teachers in that term were coming in from a second career. Why does this matter? It means that we’ve got a diverse range of would-be teachers coming in, and those entering the profession increasingly didn’t major in education.
If you’re interested in taking the first step in becoming a teacher, it’s important to approach the right people with the right information. Honestly, I found the first few months of entering education frustrating and unnecessarily convoluted. I didn’t have any friends or family who were teachers and had no idea how to start being an educator or whether or not I was even qualified. Because of that experience, I was inspired to write this blog series detailing how I became a teacher in North Carolina. This post covers the first steps I needed to take in order to make that dream a reality.
Check Your Credentials
The first step in becoming a teacher is checking that you meet the basic qualifications to get a residency license. North Carolina’s Department of Instruction lists their requirements for a license on their website, but here they are for easy reference:
- You have a bachelor’s degree
- Have either completed coursework relevant to the requested licensure area (usually 18 semester hours) OR passed the content area examination (Praxis test) relevant to the requested licensure area that has been approved by the State Board.
- Is enrolled in a recognized educator preparation program (you can apply after you get hired)
- Meets all other requirements established by the State Board, including completing preservice requirements prior to teaching (pretty sure this is just to cover their asses)
But let’s say your degree is in molecular chemistry and you want to teach kindergarten. How is that possible? Don’t worry, it is. If you look at that second bullet point, you’ll see that handy dandy OR lets you know you can test out of coursework requirements. My LEA (local education agency aka school district) was a bit iffy about my transcripts for English as I had tested out of a lot of required courses due to my high school credits. I know, I’m a smarty pants. So what did I do? I took the Praxis test for middle school English ahead of time, thus meeting the state requirements no problem.
Have a copy of your transcripts
To paraphrase the licensure specialist I first spoke to, I could have a degree in “basket weaving” and they’d find some way to get me in a classroom. That’s how desperate most states are for teachers right now. To be clear however, you do need a bachelor’s degree. My degree was in International Affairs, but luckily I had at least 18 credit hours in both history courses and English, so I quickly learned I could teach either subject. You need a copy of your transcripts handy however. You’ll need to submit this when you apply for jobs, and you’ll be able to check your own data as well.
What do you do with these transcripts? You’re going to start contacting people.
Find a Good LEA
Ok, maybe ‘good’ is a strong word. Any LEA will do. Remember, LEA stands for local education agency. It’s a fancy acronym (get used to those if you want to work in education) for your local school district. Honestly, you want to find a district that will hire you. This may be a great school district, or it might not, I don’t know. I work at the same school district where my kids go to school and I love how convenient that is. Will I be here forever? No idea, but it has been a great place to get started. There’s plenty of teachers who have taught here for decades as well, so it can’t be that bad.
Once you find an LEA, your next step is to find their HR department. Even better if you can find their “licensure specialist”. This is the person who helps make sure all of the district’s teachers have a license for the subject they are teaching. One of the first things I did when becoming a teacher was to find this person at my district and I emailed her. I let her know I wanted to become a teacher, what my general qualifications were, and that I was thinking either high school or middle school. She arranged a phone call with me and helped me review my transcripts. She was honest in that I was most qualified to teach history but that there was more demand for English teachers. She’s also the person who recommended I take three more steps.
Try Subbing
Another good first step in becoming a teacher is to try substitute teaching. I touched on this in my post on finding your subject, but by becoming a sub, you can kill a few dozen birds with one stone. You can narrow down the specific schools you’d like to teach at, network with existing teachers, meet administrators who could end up hiring you, get some experience with specific subjects or grades, work on your classroom management, etc.
Plus, when you’re subbing, you get paid to do all of these things. If you’ve been taking a break from work, this is a good way to get back into the workforce as well. Subbing is also a great job to take on while you’re finishing up college (I think you need at least 2 years done, but don’t quote me on that!) or if you plan to be a full-time student while you get your license.
Go to a School Job Fair
Ok, not like the ones aimed at high school students. You’ll just end up at a community college or in the Marines. I mean a career fair focused specifically on jobs at schools. These tend to be seasonal, often in spring or summer when schools are less busy, but again, it was so helpful for me getting my job. I met the head of HR when I went to a local job fair that I knew my LEA would be at.
She took all of my information down and they seemed really excited that I knew a few things about the process, had some experience in subbing, and had my degree completed. She actually spoke to my principal about me later when he was making hiring decisions to let him know I’d passed another Praxis test. Basically, the more people you meet, the more people you potentially have trying to help you out. Most of us teachers know just how desperately understaffed our schools are, and trust me, I’d LOVE to have another good 5 or 6 teachers in my building!
If you aren’t sure how to find a local school job fair, I recommend Googling your county name + school job fair. This should help you find previous events on local news websites or get you connected to your LEA’s Facebook page. They all love Facebook.
Take a Praxis
Finally in your first step in becoming a teacher, you should try at least 1 or 2 Praxis tests. You’ll need to pass them eventually, and they really aren’t that bad if you study for them. I think each test is good for about 10 years, and the more you take, the more subjects you have the potential to qualify for. It’s also a good way to reassure a hesitant admin or district that you’re serious and qualified. I took a good few weeks to prepare for the social studies and ELA Praxis tests and took them within a month of each other. I opted to take them on-site as I have connectivity anxiety. My internet is pretty good, but I know the day I need it to not go out is the day it will epically fail. So I took the test in person.
Wrapping Up: First Step in Becoming a Teacher
So these are some of my recommendations if you’re just starting out in your research to becoming a teacher. Again, I get how completely overwhelming the whole experience can be at first. There’s so many acronyms, people, and tests. God are there tests. Once you start reaching out to some of the people at your LEA however, you’ll learn the quirks and preferences of the hiring managers there.