Teacher Certification  Successful passage of Basic Skills Test, Content Test, and APT Test  Bachelor of Science in Education  Certification Type- Special: Valid for teaching children in the subject specified from kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12)

Initial Teacher Certification  Issued to new teachers and registered for four years at a time, the Initial Certificate is valid until four years of teaching have been obtained and expires on June 30 of the fourth year of experience. Initial Certificate holders must complete one of the professional development options for obtaining a Standard Certificate during the time they hold the Initial Certificate.

Standard Level:  Initial Certificate holders must qualify for the Standard level once they have completed four years of teaching on an Initial Certificate. The Standard Certificate is valid for five years and is renewable at the end of each registration period.  Standard Certificate holders must complete continuing professional development requirements by the end of each registration period to renew the certificate for another five-year period. Once teachers obtain a Standard Certificate, any subsequent teaching certificates issued to them will also be Standard level.

Master Level:  Valid for 10-year periods, the Master Certificate is issued to persons who have met the standards of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). The renewal requirement for this certificate is the same as the requirement for the five-year Standard Certificate. There is no application fee or testing requirement for the Master-level certificate and it is renewable on the same basis as a five year Standard certificate.

Teacher Certification and Tenure  Illinois State Board of Education Illinois State Board of Education

Latest Tenure News in Illinois  Require that teachers achieve specific performance goals over a four-year period. Currently, they get tenure automatically after four years if the district doesn't terminate them by that point.  Streamline the process for firing a teacher for poor performance.  Scuttle the "first in, last out" concept that teachers are laid off and rehired based on seniority. The layoff and rehiring order would be determined instead by performance evaluations, with seniority coming into play as a tie-breaker.

Information about teachers and schools in Illinois /