6
College Credit
College credit must be from an accredited or AACS-
recognized college or university. Accredited schools must be
accredited by an agency approved by the USDOE.
Converng Professional Development Credit or
Quarter Hours
Connuing Educaon Units (CEUs) are commonly oered for
aendance at seminars sponsored by universies, teachers’
convenons, or other educaonal instuons. Those who
receive qualied instrucon are awarded one contact hour
for each hour of class me. Since one semester hour
normally requires 15 hours of classroom instrucon, one
semester hour = 15 contact hours. Whether earned as
college credit or from professional development sources,
the teacher must submit the required number of contact
hours to renew. Quarter Hours may be divided by 1.5 to
convert to semester hours.
Provisional Cercaon
A candidate with 128 semester hours of college credit may
qualify for a provisional cercate while progressing toward
degree compleon.
Lifeme Cercaon
A candidate with an earned doctorate may renew an
Advanced Professional cercate for a Lifeme cercate if
he has at least 7 years in educaon.
CLEP
No CLEP credits are accepted for cercate renewal.
Replacement Cercates
The cost for re-evaluaon or replacement cercates is $10.
Information
1. Answer all quesons on the applicaon form. Do not leave any secons blank.
2. Request the cercate type and endorsement(s) for which you qualify. Up to 2 endorsements are included;
addional endorsement requests are $10 each.
3. Send required documentaon*:
CP, BD, and Supervised Teacher vericaon forms if required; see page 4.
Inial Applicaon: Submit ocial college transcripts for all colleges*.
Renewal & Expired Applicaons: Submit documentaon for connuing educaon completed since
your last cercate was issued. (Send copies of connuing educaon cercates; ocial college
transcripts* for renewal coursework.)
4. Aach a check for the processing fee (inial applicaon – $50; renewal fee – $45; expired cercate – $55;
addional endorsements – $10 each).
5. Submit the applicaon for your administrator’s review and signature.
6. Mail completed applicaon, processing fee and ALL required documentaon (see # 3 above) to:
AACS, 6170 Shallowford Road, Suite 103, Chaanooga, TN 37421
7. Allow 45 days for processing.
8. It is the applicant’s responsibility to follow-up with the AACS oce if he does not receive his cercate within 45 days.
Submitting the Certification
Membership
The Professional Employee Cercaon Program is a benet for
AACS member schools. If the applicant is not employed by an
AACS member school, the applicant must join AACS as an
individual member. The membership applicaon is available on
the AACS website.
Cercaon Renewal
Cercaon may be renewed up to 6 months before the
expiraon date.
Expired Cercaon
If a professional or advanced professional cercate expires and
the me since expiraon is less than one year, the expired
cercaon fee applies, and the new cercate begins when the
old cercate expired. The teacher must qualify for renewal.
If the me since expiraon is more than one year, the teacher
must qualify under current standards. The expired cercaon
fee applies.
a. If the applicant presents vericaon of 60 hours of
connuing educaon (earned since the prior cercate was
issued) that would qualify the teacher for a renewal under
current standards, a 5 year professional or 7 year advanced
professional cercate will be issued.
b. If the applicant does not present vericaon of connuing
educaon (credits or contact hours earned since the prior
cercate was issued) that would qualify the teacher for a
renewal under current standards, a 2 year professional
cercate will be issued and may be renewed as a 5 year
cercate with the compleon of 30 hours of connuing
educaon.
*When required,
original transcripts
must be included
with applicaon.
Photo copies are
not accepted. If a
transcript was
received digitally,
the Scrip-Safe
page must be
included with the
transcript.
