I just made a major mistake. We're talking huge. Career changing.
Good news? I received an offer to teach at a Chicago Public School on the south side in Englewood. Bad news? I technically can't teach it.
To be honest, I wasn't actually planning on taking the job, but the pros definitely outweighed the cons. Especially given the fact that I had been coming home in tears from work almost every single night. So I took the job, assuming that getting paperwork together would be a piece of cake - I already had a job, right? I shouldn't be able to teach in my current school without all of the required elements by the state of Illinois, right? Wrong. Dead wrong.
I figured out yesterday that the certification that I have in the state of Illinois is only valid for me to teach high school Reading. That's it. Nothing else (may explain why I wasn't getting callbacks when looking for jobs). So technically, I wasn't even certified to teach the job I was in. That's the screw up. I went for a year and a half without actually looking at my certification to figure out what it was that I could teach and how I needed to fix it. I'm not that person; I am usually right on top of this stuff. I honestly thought that because I was teaching Junior High that everything had to be okay because of state regulations. But wait, charter's get to play by a different set of rules than the rest of the kids, so it didn't matter. You don't have to be certified in the area you teach to get a job at a charter - heck, you don't have to even be fully certified!
Needless to say, I do not have the correct endorsements to teach the job that I was offered. Forget about the fact that I've been teaching the EXACT SAME THING for the past 5 years, or that I have an undergrad AND master's in this area. The red tape is not in place to make me "legal." It was a bit of a frustrating day. When my pants caught on a nail and ripped right up the back first thing yesterday morning (not kidding, this really happened), it should have been a tip that the day was going to end badly.
What's the solution? Well, I have applied for the Middle Grade Language Arts Endorsement, praying that I have the correct classes I need to add get this fixed quickly and easily. If that doesn't work then I need to take one more class . . . FAST. OR my principal changes the position to Reading, I take a test on 10th and all is well. I simply cannot believe that I let this certification lapse as much as I have. Not to mention the fact that it is EXPENSIVE to get certified!! The test is nearly $100, and the endorsement + application fees are also $100, and that's only for ONE subject area. In Michigan and Arizona I can teach any English or Language Arts from 6th - 12th grade on one teaching certificate. I can also teach Reading KINDERGARTEN - 12th grade on one certificate. But here, each different group of grades requires a test and an endorsement. I'm not sure if they're using this to weed out teachers, or just as a revenue, but it's pretty ridiculous. I kind of feel like Chicago politics has leaked over into the entire state in this situation. Michigan is one of the toughest states to be certified in and I flew through that. Now I'm stuck here like a sitting duck, trying to figure out a plan of action. Needless to say there's been a lot of praying, trusting and faith-testing going on in the last couple days.
