The State Board of Education and the Illinois Teacher Certification Board have reached a tentative agreement on proposed teacher certification rules, clearing the way for state officials to publish the standards and schedule public hearings.
The board of education was barred from publishing the rules–the first step in holding public hearings–by a Cook County Circuit Court judge who ruled last month that the agency might have overstepped its authority in adopting them. The ruling was prompted by a certification board lawsuit, which claimed the board violated the school code.
The State Board of Education will hold a special meeting Monday to approve the agreement. The 19-member certification board, composed of teachers, university officials and school administrators, plans to vote Friday.
“I am hopeful the judge will lift his restraining order and the process of gathering public comment can proceed,” said state schools Supt. Max McGee.
Charles McBarron, spokesman for the Illinois Education Association, which funded the lawsuit, said the state’s largest teachers union is pleased with the proposed settlement.
“The lawsuit was about the need for all the parties to work together and that’s exactly what happened–only after the suit was filed,” McBarron said.
The rules should be in place sometime in the fall, after the legally mandated 45-day public comment period.
The board of education and the certification board have been revamping the teacher recertification rules since legislators passed a bill last year mandating that teachers garner 120 credit hours of professional development over a five-year period to keep teaching. Previously, the state’s 125,000 public school teachers merely mailed in a $4 check every five years.
The 1999 law identified the ways teachers could earn credits, but left it up to the board of education and the certification board to assign credit hours to each activity. That is where the fighting started.
The 19-member certification board, composed of 10 teachers, five university representatives and four school administrators, crafted a proposal and sent it to the state board. But McGee lowered the number of credit hours teachers could earn for a host of professional development endeavors.
The board of education approved McGee’s changes and the certification board sued. At the behest of McGee, the two sides met for five hours earlier this week to hash out the compromise.