Minnesota’s Professional Educators Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) expects the state to have officially approved tiered license rules by Oct. 22 and they could come as soon as Oct. 15.
The newly formed board on Sept. 20 adopted the rules approved by Judge Barbara Case and her recommended corrections in her orders that were sent Sept. 17.
In Judge Case’s orders, she approved all but two of the changes proposed to her by PELSB on Aug. 30. This includes Tier 2 license criteria for Speech Language Pathologists—a position for which MREA advocated before PELSB.
Judge Case found defective PELSB’s proposed rules for “professional license from another state” and “acceptable applicant,” which are the conditions under which a school district or charter school can hire a Tier 1 candidate and reject Tier 2, 3, or 4 candidates as “not acceptable.”
To bring the process to a close, Judge Case gave PELSB rule language that she would find acceptable for each of these defects. PELSB took her up on her suggestions and is sending back to her the rules she already approved and her suggested language for the defects. View her suggestions, starting on page 5 of her letter and memorandum.
Assuming Judge Case approves all the proposed rules, PELSB has scheduled a meeting for 6:30 am on Oct. 1 to approve all rules and send them to Gov. Mark Dayton. If the timelines fall into place, the rules should go into effect Oct. 15 or Oct. 22.
MREA thanks PELSB and Executive Director Alex Liuzzi for their diligent work and open process to create rules and bring to reality the new Tiered Licensure system.
