Professional Development Opportunities for Educators

Professional Certification Program

As of September 1, 2000, all beginning teachers and most teachers from out-of-state receive Residency Certificates as their first Washington teaching certificate. This certificate is valid for five years. Within this five-year period, teachers are expected to earn the second level teaching certificate, the Professional Certificate.

The CWU Professional Teacher Certificate (ProCert) program enables teachers holding the first-level Residency Teacher certificate to advance to the second-level Professional Teacher Certificate. Teachers ordinarily enroll in a ProCert program after their first two years of teaching.

The Office of Continuing Education, in cooperation with the College of Education and Professional Studies, offers the ProCert Pre-assessment Seminar and Culminating Seminar throughout central and eastern Washington. The Pre-assessment Seminar is available online to those teachers who do not have access to a traditional Pre-assessment course.

For more information on CWU's ProCert program, please contact Dr. Andrea Sledge, College of Education and Professional Studies at sledgea@cwu.edu or phone (509) 963-1425. Visit the College of Education and Professional Studies ProCert information website.

Registration Form

National Board Certification

The Office of Continuing Education, in cooperation with the College of Education and Professional Studies, offers a National Board Certification Mentoring program. The Mentoring Program is designed to prepare teachers for National Board portfolio preparation and assessment. Candidates attend a summer orientation session with the CWU National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) facilitator group at the CWU-Ellensburg campus. The candidates then meet with their NBPTS facilitator a minimum of 10 times during the months between the summer Orientation session and the spring deadline for submission of the National Board Certification Portfolio.

For more information on CWU's National Board Certification Mentoring program, please contact Dr. Andrea Sledge, College of Education and Professional Studies at sledgea@cwu.edu or phone (509) 963-1425. Visit the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards website.

Pathways to Endorsement

The Washington State Board of Education recently adopted two new routes to adding an endorsement to an existing teaching certificate: Pathway 1 and Pathway 2. The newly created pathways are "endorsement dependent," meaning that the options that apply depend upon the teacher's current endorsement. Only colleges and universities with state board of education approved residency certificate teacher preparation programs are eligible to offer endorsement programs.

The Office of Continuing Education, in cooperation with the College of Education and Professional Studies, offers a Pathway 2 program with endorsements in the following areas:

Early Childhood Education
Elementary Education
English Language Arts
Health/Fitness
Languages (French, German, Spanish)
Mathematics
Middle Level Math/Science
Music
Physics

As a participant in Pathway 2, you will be matched with a CWU field supervisor in your region. The field supervisor will orient you to the Pedagogy Assessment Instrument, conduct classroom observations, review your portfolio and make an endorsement recommendation to the CWU Teacher Education Program.

For more information about Pathways 1 and 2, including a chart that identifies endorsements that apply to these pathways, go to the Professional Educators Standards Board.

CWU's Pathway 2 program can be completed in one academic quarter and costs $1800.

To register for CWU's Pathway 2 program, contact the Office of Continuing Education, 1-509-963-1504

For more information on obtaining an endorsement through CWU, contact the College of Education and Professional Studies Certification Office, 1-509-963-2661

Professional Development Courses

The Office of Continuing Education offers dozens of professional development courses each quarter. Some of these courses, such as New Teacher Academy, a mentoring program for new teachers, are offered at specific institutions and are available to teachers from that school or district only. Other courses, including all distance learning professional development courses, Quality Learning, Constructivist Reading, Bullying Prevention and certificate programs in Reproductive Health Care and Sexuality Education are available to educators throughout the United States.

Continuing Education offers College of Education and Professional Studies-approved endorsement programs, professional certification and National Board Certification programs, as well as workshops and conferences that grant professional development credit. The availability of these programs at a location convenient to you depends upon the interest of your school district or ESD offering a course, program, or workshop and upon the availability of a qualified instructor.

Please visit the course catalog page on our website to see course offering for the current quarter.

Traditional (classroom-based) courses

Distance Learning Courses

If you are interested in a program or course, but don't see it offered in your region, please contact the Office of Continuing Education to discuss your options. 1-509-963-1504

Registration Form

Distance Learning

The Office of Continuing Education has partnered with Virtual Software Education, Inc. (VESi) and Educational Productions to offer educators convenient, affordable, dynamic professional development courses via CD-ROM and videotape. Please visit our Distance Learning Course Catalog to review current course offerings.

Clock Hours

Clock hours are available for many conferences and workshops offered by the Office of Continuing Education. Clock hours are available for all VESi CD-ROM courses. Please contact the Office of Continuing Education for more information about clock hours availability and cost.