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Illinois

Earn Professional Development Credits toward your Illinois License Renewal – ISBE Pre-Approved

Teach & Kids Learn (TKL), has partnered with the Continuing Education Institute of Illinois to provide Illinois teachers with comprehensive and engaging online CE credited courses. We are approved by the Illinois State Board of Education to provide continuing education to teachers, administrators, and other school staff.   If you are interested in bringing valuable programs to teaching professionals in your area, please contact us.  

CLICK HERE TO REVIEW COURSE OPTIONS

Continuing Education Institute of Illinois LogoIn order to renew their certificates, public school teachers in Illinois are required to continue their education with professional development activities. For each 5-year renewal period, teachers may choose one of the following methods of filling this requirement. You will be required to maintain evidence of completion for each activity and be able to produce this documentation if selected for an audit.

Option 1: Required Unique Professional Development Activity – You may meet your professional development obligation by completing any of the following options:

  1. During the validity period of this certificate, have earned a Masters Degree or a Doctoral Degree. You may begin working on the degree at any point, but it must have been awarded during this certificate’s 5-year period.
  2. Have completed the requirements for becoming Highly Qualified in a teachable area for which you were not Highly Qualified at the beginning of this certificate’s validity period.
  3. Complete the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certificate process.
  4. Earn a subsequent Illinois certificate or endorsement (which you would not have qualified for prior to the current validity period.)
  5. Complete four semester hours of graduate coursework in Assessment of Teaching Performance or NBPTS Preparation.

Option 2: Required Coursework Professional Development Activities – This is the option you want to choose if you will complete your professional development obligation entirely with college coursework related to education or to your teachable areas. The requirement is 8 Semester Hours of college coursework. Those who have earned Masters or Doctoral degrees during prior validity periods are required to take less, but those degrees must be posted and accepted (see above) before the requirement shown is reduced. Note – if you are going to combine college coursework with CPDU’s, use Option 3.

Option 3: Required CPDU Professional Development Activities – Use this option to use a variety of activities (including workshops and college courses) to acquire professional development hours. This is the most common option. The standard requirement for CPDU’s is 120 for a 5-year period. Your amount may be less if you have exemptions or if you have a graduate degree. Regular Education teachers are required to earn 20% of their CPDU’s in activities pertaining to serving students in the least restrictive environment. Special Education teachers are required to earn 50% of their CPDU’s with such activities.

Teachers are NO LONGER REQUIRED to submit a professional development plan, to complete activities associated with old plans, or to submit paperwork to their district or co-op. No CPDU credit may be earned for activities that are designed for entertainment purposes, that are promotional or commercial in nature, or that are solely inspirational or motivational. Your ROE, STCB, or ISBE may disapprove of any activity they deem inappropriate for CPDU purposes.

For more information, visit the Illinois Department of Education website.