Teacher credentialing: emergency career substitute teaching permit: alternative qualifications

The law gives schools a temporary option to staff general and special education classrooms when qualified alternatives are unavailable, while requiring training, mentoring, parent notice, recruitment steps, and public reporting.

What the law does ​

• Lets the Commission on Teacher Credentialing accept training, orientation, and mentoring instead of prior substitute-teaching experience for an initial emergency career substitute permit.
• Requires at least five hours of professional development, an interactive orientation, and an assigned qualified mentor for permit holders using the alternative pathway.
• Allows these permit holders to serve up to 70 cumulative days in a single general or special education classroom.
• Makes permits issued or first renewed under this pathway valid for 12 months and requires 30 hours of professional development for the first renewal.
• Requires local educational agencies to notify parents or guardians within 10 schooldays when an alternative-pathway permit holder is placed in their child’s classroom.
• Requires agencies to use suitable statutory-leave permit holders where applicable or make reasonable recruitment efforts before making these assignments.
• Requires annual public reporting of longer substitute assignments and annual reporting to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing of alternative-pathway permit assignments.

Who it affects ​

• Emergency career substitute teaching permit applicants and holders.
• Students and parents or guardians in classrooms staffed by these substitute teachers.
• School districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and their governing boards.
• Credentialed teachers and administrators who may serve as mentors.

Context ​

The Legislature describes the flexibility as a limited stopgap during teacher shortages, not a replacement for fully credentialed teachers.