Teachers face state license renewal delays, worsening CCSD shortage

Lauren Comeau wasn’t in her classroom teaching math when a new school year began on Aug. 9.

She was sitting at home waiting for her teaching license renewal application to be processed by the Nevada Department of Education.

Comeau, a math teacher at Basic Academy of International Studies in Henderson, applied for license renewal in mid-July, weeks before her license was set to expire on Aug. 2.

But when school opened with no response, Comeau said she was suspended from the Clark County School District without pay and given 90 days to resolve the issue with her license. She relied on a substitute teacher to cover her classes for the first few days of school.

“It’s really just 90 days scrambling desperately to fix what is taking so long,” she said Aug. 10.

Later that day, she found out her license had been issued. She returned to teaching Aug. 12.

Comeau isn’t the only instructor struggling with the licensing problem. The school district, which has hundreds of teaching vacancies, said Thursday there were approximately 60 pending teaching license renewals awaiting action.

In June 2020, Gov. Steve Sisolak issued an emergency directive extending the expiration date on educator licenses for up to a year. At the time, more than 4,700 educators were slated to have their license expire over the next four months.

But no similar directive was issued this year.

A four to five week process

It typically takes four to five weeks to process a renewal application during the busy spring and summer months, the Nevada Department of Education said in an email to the Review-Journal.

Educators typically begin receiving monthly reminder notifications about nine months before their license expires, it said.

Technology issues over the summer, delayed some teachers getting their license renewal applications processed and created a backlog, it said.

The state education department experienced an outage of its Online Portal for Applications and Licensure, also known as OPAL, from June 3-14.

Licenses that expired during that time were automatically extended through July 31. “This allowed applicants additional time to submit applications and state licensure staff time to process applications,” the department said.

The department sent a memo to all school districts and the Nevada State Public Charter School Authority on June 23 with information about the OPAL outage and extension dates.

“NDE is not aware of any reports of teachers being fired or suspended as a result of the OPAL system being down,” the department said via email to the Review-Journal. “The system downtime would not have resulted in suspensions or loss of employment because of the extension date to 7/31.”

It is not clear whether the snafu played any role in Comeau’s suspension.

First reminders unheeded

She said this was the first time she needed to apply for license renewal. Although she received reminder messages from the state a few months before the expiration date, she didn’t realize how long it took for a renewal application to be processed.

Next time she has to renew her license, she said, she’ll apply much earlier.

Comeau started the renewal application July 8, but was waiting on her student transcripts and Praxis exam scores until July 17. She submitted her completed application with all of the documentation shortly thereafter.

Comeau said there were delays in receiving the documentation she needed. She said she took the Praxis exam in May and was supposed to receive scores in late June. It also took two weeks instead of two days to get her college transcripts.

The licensing issue comes at a bad time for the CCSD, which has hundreds of job vacancies, including for teachers and substitute teachers. Math is one of the subjects most impacted by the shortage.

As of Thursday, the school district’s hiring website listed 833 open licensed or certified positions.

Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2921. Follow @julieswootton on Twitter.