PI 34 Information
By Joanne M. Haas
Wouldn’t it be nice to have one place to go
to sort out information about the state’s new teacher licensing
law, and to conveniently complete the law’s professional development
requirements and opportunities?
That place will exist next year with the launch of
a new Web site called Quality Educator Interactive. It will be housed
within OnWEAC.
Among other things, teachers accessing this online
service will be able to securely and confidentially store license renewal
projects, resumes and transcripts, using an electronic portfolio system
that is being developed by WEAC, the University of Wisconsin System
and UW Extension. Vital career documents will remain confidential, portable
and accessible to member educators no matter where the teacher is employed.
“Teachers change districts,” said Charlene
Gearing, WEAC’s director of teaching and learning, one of the
key players involved in the system’s ongoing development. “This
portfolio system is not linked to a district, or a university or a CESA.
This is on WEAC’s Web site, so teachers will be able to get to
their portfolio for their entire careers.”
Users will be able to store any and all records pertaining
to their careers. A teacher may give permission for a prospective employer
to view the electronic records, said WEAC’s teaching and learning
consultant Ron Jetty. “The teacher controls the use,” he
said.
One aim of this still-developing Internet home is
to make the state’s new teacher licensing law – known as
PI 34 – less cumbersome by providing easy-to-follow steps online.
“This will streamline the paperwork and will
make it far less complicated,” Gearing said of the system that
guides the user through the options.
The system also connects educators with people able
to serve on professional development plan review teams. This online
matchmaker will be especially helpful to teachers in need of peer teachers
or higher education representatives when forming the three-member professional
development plan review teams as required by PI 34 for renewal of the
five-year Professional Educator License.
Veteran educators also will be able to offer their
services to professional development plan review teams under any special
scenarios -- such as limiting their services to a certain district or
to a certain subject matter.
The interactive system also will help experienced
educators deciding whether to renew under PI 34 or opt to renew their
licenses the former way of earning six college credits. Informa-tion
about college courses, either at a nearby campus or a virtual offering,
will be accessible on the system.
The system also will serve the needs of the professional
development providers by including their information in the interactive
database where members can simply search or register to receive alerts
about opportunities in specific topics or geographic areas.
Since the UW System and UW Extension are partners,
users will see class notices and other special program information in
the active database. That database also is expected to include information
from numerous professional development providers including the state
Department of Public Instruction, the various Cooperative Educational
Service Agencies and groups such as the Wisconsin Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development.
“Every teacher in the state can eventually use
it,” Gearing said of the seemingly boundless system that began
as an idea more than two years ago. Gearing said the system would have
been especially useful for her when she was a French teacher since she
taught in a district where she was the only teacher in her field. That’s
not the only reason she’s sold on it.
“I know I would use it because I would have
all my stuff in one place,” she said.
Once up and running, user members will be asked to
pay a minimal fee. Jetty and Gearing stress the fee will be determined
by what is needed to keep the system sustained as a non-profit operation.
“It is nice that the UW and WEAC have put in money to grow it.
Now we have to sustain it,” Gearing said, adding the cost per
person will be “bare bones – basically just to keep the
system running.”
Resource page on PI 34
Posted November 19, 2004