NYC public school: How to get MA+30 salary differential

amother

OP ↓

Fri, Apr 09 2021, 1:18 pm

Trying to help a friend who doesn't have the bandwidth to figure it out herself but wants to earn the next salary level. I thought I could help by googling this stuff but it's so unclear! Can anyone who has BTDT please explain in plain English what qualifies for the 30 credits? Do they need to be master's level? Do they even need to be related to teaching? The UFT website said something vague about "some CTLE workshops" earning credits but with no way forward to figure out which workshops and how much they're worth!

Obviously we're looking for the least costly way to get this done. Any tips are appreciated. WHY do they make it so hard to get this information?!

amother

↑ OP ↓

Wed, Apr 14 2021, 9:52 am

I'm not a UFT teacher so I can't really access that. The person I'm trying to help is part of UFT but they simply have too much on their plate right now. I was also wondering if maybe the frum community here knows about options that are more accessible or affordable.

amother

Blush ↓

Wed, Apr 14 2021, 9:59 am

They changed the requirements a few years ago. Now, any teacher hired after Sept. 2019 needs 18 A+ credits, and any teacher hired between Sept. 2017-Sept. 2019 needs 6 A+ credits. Here's a description of A+ credits: https://www.uft.org/news/you-s.....oney. You can find courses here: https://pci.nycenet.edu/ASPDP/.....aspdp

I did my 30+ right before they changed this rule (although I was hired in 2016 so it wouldn't have made a difference). I did 30 TTI credits by taking Jewish Studies tests. I took Moadim, Bereishis with Rashi, Bereishis with Meforshim, Lashon HaKodesh 1, and Lashon HaKodesh 2 (I think that was it). Probably would still work for the other required courses.

icedcoffee

Wed, Apr 14 2021, 10:40 am

Hi, I can help with this! The best thing to do is to take CLEP or DSST exams. They provide between 3-6 credits each, so you need to take about 10. When I took them a few years ago, it was about $100 each, between the exam fee and the testing center fee. It therefore cost about $1000 to get the credits for a ~$7k salary bump, so it paid for itself easily. I used the website http://www.free-clep-prep.com and was completely fine using just that for "studying" - the tests really aren't difficult.

The tricky thing is, you can't take any exams that are similar to classes you've already taken in college. It depends on the HR person looking at your application to make the call. Some people will only reject it if it is literally the same name as a class you took: ex "American Literature CLEP" if you took an "American Literature" class in college. However, the person who did mine was even pickier - since I majored in English and History, they rejected everything related to English and History, even if I had never taken a class on that particular era or subject. The best thing to do is things that are completely random and unrelated. I think I did tests for Intro to Marketing, Business Law, Criminal Justice, totally unrelated to anything on my transcripts, and those were good.

amother

↑ Blush

Wed, Apr 14 2021, 1:14 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

They were hired way before that. So these tests that you can take without an actual course can count for these credits? That's awesome. Do you know how much they cost?

I don't remember the exact price. It was something like $60/credit.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cpgz.....?dl=1

amother

↑ OP

Tue, Sep 19 2023, 10:21 am

Bump, looking for help again - after double checking with union rep we went ahead with one of the Jewish testing credits programs. The salary differential application was rejected because the credits were accredited nationally, not regionally.

I'm SCOURING the internet and can't find anything saying that they need to be regionally accredited. You'd think this kind of info should be publicly available beforehand but the first I heard of it was in the rejection email.

Anyone ever heard of this? I can't find anything either way. The only results that come up on Google is the same line saying that before 2017 it doesn't need to be A+ type credit, and that it can be either undergraduate or graduate. Can't find ANY other info or criteria ANYWHERE. I keep trying different search terms and going through pages of results and there's nothing!

Meanwhile we've reached out to the union and haven't gotten a response yet to two emails.
Banging head