Members of the Education Professional Standards Board sit around a large table, discussing items during their meeting.

Members of the Education Professional Standards Board (EPSB) heard recommendations for new certification grade bands from the Certification Structure Workgroup at their meeting on June 17.

The work group was created in October 2024 to analyze and suggest potential areas of reform within Kentucky’s teacher certification structure. The group has 32 members, including legislators, educators, school and district administrators, human resource directors, and educator preparation providers.

Members of the work group analyzed current grade bands and credential structures to see if they meet districts’ needs. The workgroup reviewed state and national data and identified that some of the challenges within the current system could be addressed by modifying the existing certification grade bands and certification permissions.

The work group initially considered a K–8 and 7–12 certification structure, but ultimately decided against it, concluding that the model would require too many changes to educator preparation programs and could make it more difficult to adequately prepare teachers.

“Our educator preparation providers brought a different perspective to this,” KDE Division Director Todd Davis said. “They were able to look at different models and determine what it would do and what challenges it might cause with preparing our new teachers.”
An additional consequence of reducing to only two broad grade bands could be unintended challenges for teachers who prefer teaching specific grade levels.

“If I prefer teaching middle school, I may not want to teach elementary,” Davis said. “[Would the proposed change] cause problems and create barriers because people want middle school or they just want elementary, and they don’t want to add those credentials?”
Instead, the group explored other ways to expand how many grade levels teachers can teach.

“The [proposed] overlap creates innovative ways to add credentials, and you can essentially get to that K-8 model with dual credentials or by adding a credential at a later time,” Davis said.

The recommendations for each base certificate are below.

* In the proposal, educators holding a Middle School base certificate would be authorized to teach grades 4 and 5, but only in departmentalized classroom settings.

All of these recommendations would require educator preparation providers to make minor adjustments to their programs.

In the future, Davis said the work group hopes to explore certification permissions for science content, explore ways to strengthen avenues for expanding credentials, and explore options for streamlining credentials.

EPSB members shared positive feedback on the recommendations. Cathy Gunn, who represents middle school educators, said she believes overlapping some grade levels will be helpful for teachers who move between schools.

Davis said the EPSB has broad legal authority to modify the certification structure as outlined in KRS 161.028 (1)(a). However, the EPSB did not take any action on the certification’s recommendations during the meeting. They will discuss possible changes to the structure at a future meeting.