Highly Qualified / Bridge Certificate

This is an overview of Pennsylvania's Highly Qualified Teacher Requirements through the Bridge Certificate Program. The complete guidelines are available on the Pennsylvania Department of Education site at http://www.teaching.state.pa.us/teaching/cwp/browse.asp?A=7&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=33061.

Information contained in this section is informational only. It is provided to highlight the requirements of the Bridge Certificate program and to direct teachers and administrators to the PDE site for more detailed information. The complete guidelines and procedures for meeting Pennsylvania's Highly Qualified Teacher Requirements through the Bridge Certificate Program must be followed as outlined on the PDE Bridge Certificate page.

Excerpts from Bridge Guidelines as of April 25, 2005
The Pennsylvania Department of Education presents these Guidelines and Procedures to assist local school entities, professional educators, and others in implementing the Highly Qualified Teacher (HQT) components in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) and related resolutions adopted by the State Board of Education on June 18 and September 16, 2004.

NCLB places a major emphasis on the importance of teacher quality in improving student achievement. The purpose of the HQT provisions in NCLB and the State Board's implementing standards is to increase the academic achievement of all students by helping schools and districts improve teacher quality and ensure that all teachers are highly qualified. The Department's primary goal is to ensure that all teachers have the necessary content knowledge to help students meet state academic and achievement standards.

Pennsylvania's Bridge Certificate program is adopted pursuant to authority granted the Commonwealth under section 9101(23) of NCLB. The Bridge Certificate Program applies to elementary and secondary teachers who are not new to the profession, hold at least a bachelor's degree, and demonstrate competence in each academic subject in which they teach based on satisfaction of a high objective uniform state standard of evaluation.

Reminder: In accordance with NCLB, all classroom teachers must be appropriately certified and designated as "highly qualified teachers" by no later than June 30, 2006.

Other Highly Qualified Teacher Options
The Department of Education wishes to stress that facilitating the award of Bridge Certificates to eligible teachers is not the only means by which a school or school district can satisfy the HQT components in NCLB. Bridge Certification is one in a range of options schools and districts can use to meet their staffing needs. Current teachers may add a secondary area to their Instructional certificates by taking and passing the appropriate Praxis test for the subject area. Information and forms related to adding an area to an Instructional certificate may be accessed by going to the "Teaching in PA" portion of the Department's Web site at www.teaching.state.pa.us. The Praxis test is administered by the Education Testing Service; further information is available online at www.ets.org/praxis.