Monday, May 14, 2007
done with BTSA!
ohmygosh i am done with BTSA, aka beginning teacher state accreditation, aka a big expensive pain in the butt hoop that CA teachers have to jump through.
i mean, after paying $8000 to UCR to get my credential and my masters, i then got a teaching job, and found out i only have my preliminary credential. in order to clear a credential (aka stop jumping through hoops), beginning teachers need to do a two year program. TWO YEAR PROGRAM. get this - it costs $8000 per year to go through this program.
oh, and what does this program consist of? well, since i was at ucr, we were the test pilot for the program. which means that this two year program is a series of online forms that is EXACTLY WORD FOR WORD the same online program colloquium i did for my masters. so basically, i just paid $16,000 over the last two years to mimic what i had completed in one year at UCR. interesting how the state of california gets you, eh? not only are beginning teachers on the bottom rung of the pay scale, we have the most expenses. such as the $60 to get fingerprinted to work in a district (which i had to pay twice in my district because apparently they need a new set of fingerprints when you become a teacher, because the substitute teacher fingerprints somehow aren’t good enough). oh, and there were about 50 teachers at that meeting today, which means that for my district alone BTSA earned/cost $400,000. crazy, right?
at any rate, i’ll stop complaining about the busywork they add to the life of a beginning teacher trying to prepare for the classroom every day not needing extra work to do and just proclaim loudly that I AM FINALLY DONE WITH BTSA!!!!
my two years are over, and i’m a free woman! =) now just two more classes i need to take before they clear my credential!
DONE WITH BTSA!
can you tell how happy i am? =)