What you need:
Renewal of your teaching certificate requires 150 hours of continuing professional education (CPE) every five years. Administrators require 200 hours of CPE.
Importantly, you do not need 150 hours per certification. So, if you hold multiple teaching certificates, you only need to complete 150 CPE hours for all your certificates.
How to earn your hours:
You must choose courses from an organization that is pre-approved by TEA. You can find the pre-approval list on the TEA website here:
https://tea4avcastro.tea.state.tx.us/cpe/cpe_providers.html
Model Teaching is a pre-approved TEA provider. We offer individual courses or bundle courses for a low-cost way to earn your CPE hours in one place. Every 1 PD hour of coursework with Model Teaching is equivalent to 1 CPE hour. With over 500 hours of coursework to choose from, you have many options to fulfill your requirements through Model teaching. Take a look at our bundled course options here: Build Your Own CPE Bundle
What type of training can you take?
Information about continuing professional education can be found at the TEA link here: https://tea.texas.gov/texas-educators/preparation-and-continuing-education/continuing-professional-education-cpe
For teachers, TEA requests courses that focus on two areas:
- content area knowledge and skills
- professional ethics and standards of conduct.
You may utilize general pedagogy courses, courses designed to improve your instructional practices, content-specific courses, and courses to help you maintain professionalism and ethical standards.
In addition to the two general areas above, TEA requires not more than 37.5 hours of CPE training in each topic. Two or more listed topics may also be combined into one course:
Model Teaching courses meet these additional requirements.
You can find some suggested Model Teaching courses you may choose from that are aligned with each of the requirements below:
You may also complete suicide prevention training, AED operation training, or technology training, though they are not required at the time of this article publication.
CPE delivery options
Courses, workshops, and conferences can qualify for CPE hours. College and graduate-level coursework may also apply, so if you are pursuing a master’s degree, for example, you can apply some coursework towards your renewal. Model Teaching partners with Augustana University to provide low-cost options for a Master’s degree. If you are considering a master’s degree, find out more about how you can take continuing education courses with Model Teaching and later apply them to Augustana University’s master’s program.
You may also take 20% of your hours as self-study hours, 10% of your hours as course development or as a course instructor, and 30% of your hours as a documented mentor.
Or you can take all 150 hours of CPE through courses like those offered by Model Teaching.
Where to renew
Once you have completed all your required hours, you will renew your application in your TEAL account here: https://tealprod.tea.state.tx.us/
If you do not yet have a TEAL account, you will need to visit: https://tea.texas.gov/texas-educators/certification/educator-certification-online-system to create one.
How to renew
Once you have completed your 150 hours of CPE requirements, you will log into your TEAL account. Within your account, there will be an applications section and an option to “renew a standard certificate.” Complete the prompts and pay the renewal fee.
Questions
For questions about your certificate renewal, you can contact TEA directly by calling or emailing them using the information provided on their website here: https://tea.texas.gov/about-tea/contact-us
For questions about Model Teaching’s low-cost professional development CPE, contact us via the chat option below or email us at courses@modeltaching.com. You can also visit our Texas renewal information page to learn more here:
Note: Model Teaching has provided this summary of TEA’s renewal policies based on information and documentation provided by the TEA website. This article is a summary we have prepared for educational purposes only to help our current and future Model Teaching students understand their requirements in a summary form. It will be maintained to provide the most current information to the best of our ability. Model Teaching is not affiliated with TEA but is an approved CPE provider. We strongly recommend confirming your specific teaching license renewal needs with TEA.
Article publication date: January 2025
