The Military Veterans Teacher Certification Pathway, which is now open, will help expand the pipeline of potential teachers for the School District of Lee County.

“It opens that pathway to get more teachers in the classroom that haven’t yet met the requirements, but are working to get the requirements. It gets them in sooner,” Assistant Director for Recruitment Suzette Rivera said.

The school district has quite a few veterans already employed and teaching students. Troops to Teachers, at the state level, reached out to the district because of the high number of veterans that are employed, she said, adding next month they will be interviewing those veterans and district staff.

On July 1, Florida started issuing a five-year Temporary Certificate for military veterans who have met certain eligibility requirements but have not yet earned a bachelor’s degree.

Those eligibility requirements include minimum of 48 months of active duty military service with honorable/medical discharge; minimum of 60 college credits with a 2.5 grade point average; a passing score on a Florida subject area examination for bachelor’s level subjects, demonstrating mastery of subject area knowledge and employment in a Florida school district, including charter schools.

Rivera said normally it’s a three-year temporary certificate. The Military Veterans Teacher Certification Pathway provides an additional two years.

The areas that are in higher need of teachers in the district include math, science, English, or language arts, as well as special education. To teach in one of these subjects, the Subject Area Exam needs to be taken and passed, she said.

All teachers who are hired into the school district fall in line with one of their human resource staff members to make sure they have all the requirements they need and are on track with meeting their milestones. They also receive professional development and are assigned a mentor.

A mentor, someone who will work with the veteran one-on-one, will remain with them for the first year and is typically someone in the same building, grade level, or content area.

The district is offering Zoom hours with a recruitment team member for veterans who have questions, or need assistance with the application process, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The link can be found at leeschools.net/careers/veterans_certification.

“It’s not by appointment. You can log on and jump in,” Rivera said.