Governor Newsom,

We, the drafters of this petition, are teacher candidates enrolled in San Jose State University’s teacher credential program. We, like others throughout the state of California, were on track to complete our credential program when the Covid-19 crisis triggered Executive Order N-33-20’s “Stay at Home” mandate and interrupted our K-12 student teaching assignments. Like many teachers across the state, we have moved to distance- and online-learning to support our students, but for the majority of us, it will be impossible to earn a credential given inflexibility around completing the Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) requirement for licensure. This is because California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) will not modify its video submission requirements for  the TPA. This is delaying our licensure and jeopardizing our ability to find jobs in the fall. For this reason, we are now reaching out to ask that you intervene and help Save Our Future Teachers (SOFT).

By the end of the semester, we will have completed the requirements for earning a credential, minus the TPA requirement. We will have passed multiple assessments demonstrating the same performance expectations assessed in the TPA. Yet now we are being told by CTC administrators (most of whom are insulated from the educational and economic ravages of this executive order), that our efforts are not sufficient to graduate in May. Why? Because this one assessment requires in-class instruction and video evidence that the majority of us cannot provide due to the limited resources of the communities we serve, constraints set by districts to protect students in online environments, or limited hours of live instruction made available to students. These are limitations that are beyond our control and simply reflect the unusual demands of life during this crisis.

Our only alternative is to receive a “variable term waiver” that grants us the “privilege” of competing with fully credentials peers who happened to be placed in more affluent or less restrictive school districts or, perhaps more likely, returning to our placements for another semester of unpaid work.

The CTC has not adequately addressed the hardship and inequity their inflexibility has forced upon future public school teachers. How can a history or English teacher candidate teach online classes to students who don’t have computers at home? How can an art teacher instruct students who don’t have access to art supplies? How can a biology teacher candidate conduct online lab work without a lab? And how can any of these people afford to potentially stay out of the job market for 6-12 months while we enter the teeth of a significant recession or possible depression?

Governor Newsom, we have complied, and continue to comply with your directive to help reduce the spread of COVID 19. But we hope that you don’t stand idly by while the CTC refuses to waive legislatively mandated but now unachievable teacher credential requirements. Just as California is currently in need of new ventilators to breathe life into the sick, soon it will need new educators to breathe knowledge into the next generation. So now is the time to GO SOFT (Save Our Future Teachers)! Our kids are counting on you.

Thank you for your consideration.

Aiden Hill, Spring 2020 Teacher Candidate – Social Science

Mary Hadley Berger, Spring 2020 Teacher Candidate – English

Rachel Groffie, Spring 2020 Teacher Candidate – Art

Renee Sharp, Spring 2020 Teacher Candidate – Biology

Tuan Nguyen, Spring 2020 Teacher Candidate - Mathematics

Kendra Kannegaard, Spring 2020 Teacher Candidate – Drama/English

Hayley Kjar, Spring 2020 Teacher Candidate – Physical Education