EPP Handbook of Policies and Procedures

Student Teaching Services Office

Student Teaching

Fingerprinting and Background Checks

All background checks must be cleared prior to the start of student teaching. Regardless of where a candidate completes their student teaching experience or what education major they have, a background check will still be required.

Background checks (fingerprinting) can be completed in the Student Teaching Services Office (HIN 325) or at any other approved fingerprinting stations (Police Departments). Candidates must bring with them a government-issued ID (Driver's license, state-issued photo ID, passport, military ID with photo, etc.). Candidates who will be student teaching in Arizona, Nevada, or Utah may be asked to compete and mail a fingerprinting card up to 12 weeks prior to starting their student teaching.

Approved by ECC 12/3/2020

Literacy Exams

Educator Preparation Programs in Idaho must meet the State specific requirements including the Idaho Comprehensive Literacy Standards ( Idaho - Department of Education ). BYU-Idaho has chosen to show that its candidates meet these Comprehensive Literacy Standards through the use of the four assessments developed by the Idaho Higher Education Partnership (IHELP). IHELP also worked to establish adequate reliability and validity for the assessments.

Candidates take these assessments as part of their comprehensive literacy coursework. As of Fall 2020, Candidates must pass these exams with a 70% or higher score. Elementary Education, Early Childhood/Special Education (ECSE), and Special Education K-12 (SPED) teacher candidates must pass the assessments for Standards 1 – 4. Secondary Education teacher candidates must pass the assessments for Standards 2 and 4. ECSE and SPED candidates whose catalog year did not require them to take all the comprehensive literacy classes will need to take and pass all the four literacy exams. This is the only way we have to show that they meet the standards without them taking the class.

January 2021

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

A written agreement between BYU-Idaho and Partner Districts to provide students with a teaching field experience. This MOU outlines a cooperative education program between the University and the District in which the District provides supervision, facilities, and instruction to help BYU-Idaho candidates acquire the skills and knowledge needed to become professional teachers. The MOU lays out pertinent definitions, District and University expectations, and some miscellaneous provisions such as FERPA. The MOU may be terminated by either party for any reason upon written notice to the other party.

P rocess for Initiating a MOU: The Student Teaching Services Office (STS) reviews the MOU document, and sends it to BYUI attorney for review and approval. Once the MOU is approved, STS sends the document to the district where a new partnership is being developed. A District official signs the document and returns it to the STS. STS acquires a signature from the Dean of Teacher Prep Programs and from the Academic Vice President. STS then sends a completed and signed copy of the MOU back to the partner District.

MOU Revisions: MOU’s can be revised at any time when needed if the District and BYUI are both in agreement. If the personnel who signed the MOU (either from BYUI or the District) change positions, the MOU should be updated with current signatures from persons in current leadership positions.

Approved by ECC 12/3/2020

Paid Internships - See Alternate Route to Certification

Partner School/District for Student Teaching

Definition: A school and/or district which has entered into an agreement with BYU-Idaho. Partner districts were created to increase the quality of the student teaching experience. This agreement includes BYU-I placing multiple Teacher Candidates each semester and the district agreeing to use a collaborative co-teaching, co-planning, and co-assessing model to facilitate learning.

Representatives from some of the partner school/districts and BYU-Idaho come together once a year in an Advisory Council with the purpose of assessing our current practices and procedures. The Advisory Council is composed of Partner school/district administration, mentor teachers, BYU-Idaho supervisors, Area Coordinators, current BYU-Idaho students and Student Teaching Services Officers.

Principles and Guidelines:

The primary mission of BYU-I is to develop disciples of Jesus Christ. As such, BYU-I works to establish partnerships in areas where candidates can grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. Namely, we look for areas where there is a temple close by, where there is a strong Institute of Religion program and where there are sufficient numbers of young single adults to provide adequate social activities.
Must have University Supervisors that are hired and living in that area. The Supervisors must have completed their proficiency certificate in the Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching.
Each partner school/district commits to improving their practice, innovate, and provide the highest quality experience to their students and our BYUI teaching candidates.
In conjunction with STS and Area Coordinators, district officials will interview and co-select which candidates will come to their districts to student teach.
Districts will collect and share pertinent data with BYUI for program assessment and professional development.
Mentor Teachers commit to co-teach, co-assess, co-plan, and collaborate with BYUI teacher candidates.

Our Partner District Locations:

Local (Madison, Sugar Salem, South Fremont, Rigby, Bonneville, and Idaho Falls School Districts)
Boise, ID (Caldwell School District)
Ogden, Utah (Weber School District)
Salt Lake City, Utah (Jordan and Granite School Districts)
Las Vegas, Nevada (Clark County School District)
Mesa, Arizona (Mesa School District)

Petition to Student Teach without Having Met the Requirements (Passing the Praxis, Passing all Coursework, etc.)

Candidates must pass all of their coursework and all required exams prior to being allowed to student teach. The State of Idaho highly recommends that candidates pass the Praxis exam(s) prior to student teaching to ensure that student teachers have a high level of content knowledge. BYU-Idaho honors this requirement and holds candidates to this standard with rare exceptions.

Candidates who have not met the requirements but have exceptional circumstances may complete a petition (available from Student Teaching Services) to student teach. The petition must include: (1) an explanation of extenuating circumstances, (2) the reason why waiting an additional semester is problematic, and (3) in the case of not having passed the Praxis, the history of attempted Praxis exams, the scores and how far they were from the passing cut-score.

Once a completed form is received from the Student Teaching Services Office, the form is routed to the Office Assistant for the Dean of Teacher Preparation Programs who ensures the form is complete and contacts the candidate’s practicum supervisors and program lead to ascertain and record if there are any concerns with regard to the candidate’s teaching ability, his/her content knowledge or his/her professional dispositions.

Once complete, the form is forwarded to the Dean of Teacher Preparation Programs. For petitions related to coursework not yet completed, the dean ensures that the program has no concerns with the candidate moving forward without the class(es) in question.

For concerns related to missing Praxis exams, the dean takes into account how many points the candidate is away from passing, whether the deficient test is in the area of the candidate’s major or minor area of study, if there are any concerns from the program area or supervisors, and the merit of the exceptional circumstances. In this, the dean must ensure that Idaho P-12 students are served by competent student teachers, that any exceptions to policy are justifiable to the State, and that candidates with exceptional circumstances are served in a compassionate and reasonable way.

If there are no extenuating circumstances, the petition is typically denied. If the deficiency is only in their minor area and is less than 3 points away, the petition is usually approved. If there are concerns from the program or practicum supervisors, the petition is typically denied. Even if the program has no concerns about the student and the student does indeed have extenuating circumstances, the petition is still typically denied if the deficit is in the major area and is more than a few points from the cut-score.

11/9/2020

Potential Concerns with Student Teaching Candidates: Communication between STS and programs

As soon as the list of candidates who will be interviewing for student teaching positions is complete, the Student Teaching Services Office (STS) sends a copy of the list to individual program leads. Programs then review the list and if they have concerns about any candidate on the list, they should inform STS regarding the nature of the concern. If the nature of the concern is related to the candidate’s ability to interview well, the program should refer the candidate to the Interview Practice Center in Career Services ( Powerful Job Interviews) to maximize the success of the candidate during the interviews. If the concern is regarding the candidate’s ability to pass current classes and move on to student teaching, the program informs STS so they can make contingency plans should the candidate not qualify for student teaching that semester. If there are concerns regarding other areas that may affect the success of the candidate during student teaching, the program informs STS of the nature of the concern so they can be mindful in selecting a mentor teacher for the candidate.

11/9/2020

Removing a Candidate from Student Teaching

The goal of the Student Teaching Services Office is to create the opportunity for success in student teaching for each Teacher Candidate. However, despite the best efforts of all involved, it is understood that occasionally some Teacher Candidates may not be prepared for the total responsibilities they must assume as a classroom teacher. Attempts to assist a struggling Teacher Candidate might include the use of additional observations, followed by a reflective conference with one or more supervisors, or other measures deemed appropriate for the given circumstances. If, after reasonable attempts to assist a Teacher Candidate who is experiencing significant problems in the classroom, the Teacher Candidate’s performance continues to be unsatisfactory as measured against the department, University, or state performance standards, the University is obligated to remove the Teacher Candidate from student teaching.

The following are some of the reasons for removal from student teaching:

Unsatisfactory performance such as receiving 1’s in an area of the Danielson Framework for teaching. Problems with applying pedagogy or content knowledge during student teaching may result in remediation. This may include asking a Teacher Candidate to return to campus for remedial work or advising the candidate into a major better suited to their abilities.
Violating BYU-Idaho Honor Code and/or BYU-Idaho Dress and Grooming Standards policy.
Violating policies of the school district.
Any form of physical contact with a student done for the express purpose of correcting and/or punishing them. This includes, but is not necessarily limited to, spanking, hitting, throwing objects at the student, grabbing, pinching, pulling hair, shaking, and/or shoving.
Other forms of abuse considered serious enough to result in removal include, but are not limited to, psychological abuse, including teasing, ridiculing, and/or other acts that result in humiliation or loss of self-esteem; sexual harassment; and illegal discrimination based on race, gender, national origin or ethnicity.
Any violation of state or federal laws (i.e. Code of Ethics).
Other unprofessional behavior.

The above decisions will be finalized by one of the Student Teaching Services Office Directors through consultation with the mentor teacher, supervisor, school administrator and program director/secondary education content representative. Any decision made by a Student Teaching Services Director can be appealed to the Dean of Teacher Preparation Programs. Procedures for removal are clearly outlined in the Student Teaching Policy and Procedure Manual.

*Mentor teachers and principals have the right to request a Teacher Candidate’s removal from student teaching.

If a candidate withdraws from the current semester’s course(s), there is no guarantee that the candidate will be able to complete their field experience at a later time. The student may need to reapply and go through the same procedural process as a student who was removed from their field experience.

January 18, 2021

Requests for Student Teaching Placement in a Specific Partner Area

Candidates have the opportunity to fill out a request form if they feel they have a particular need to be placed specifically in one of the approved partner areas. This is not limited to just the local area, but is available for students who may have living arrangements or other circumstances that would require them to be placed in a particular distant site.

These requests are accepted near the beginning of the semester in which a candidate is hoping to interview for a placement. The requests are reviewed by the Directors of Student Teaching Services in conjunction with Area Coordinators. It is important to consider the availability of the content in the area in which the candidate is requesting placement. Extenuating circumstances are taken into account during this review, and students are notified whether their request can be granted or whether it is denied. If the content is available and there is a qualified mentor to host the candidate, then the request can be accommodated. If not, the candidate needs to consider other options for placement within that semester or defer to a later semester.

January 18, 2021

Special Placements

Our policy is that we do not allow student teaching placements outside of our partner districts in Idaho, Utah, Mesa, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada. We believe that candidates are best served in a partner district where we have: trained supervisors who have been certified in the Danielson Framework for Teaching; cohort groups; an area coordinator; an area that has been vetted in terms YSA population, a close temple, etc; a mentor teacher whom we’ve trained in our co-teaching model; and an established memorandum of understanding with the district and where we have worked with the schools to select good mentor teachers.

If a candidate requests a special placement, the Student Teaching Services Office will work with the candidate to explore how s/he could make one of our partner districts work for them. In this process, if it becomes apparent that the candidate truly has some exceptional circumstances, the STS directors and the Dean of Teacher Preparation Programs will meet to discuss the appropriateness and the feasibility of granting an exception.

January 18, 2021

Starting Semesters Early or Finishing Late

In Fall semester, student teaching experiences generally begin the day after Labor Day and end the Friday before graduation. When possible, however, we encourage student teachers to begin their teaching experience as a volunteer when their placement school begins their academic year. This provides the student teacher the best opportunity to learn from a mentor teacher how to set up a classroom and management system from day 1. Regardless of when a student teacher begins, the end date remains the same.

Unique circumstances may necessitate a student teacher starting or finishing their teaching experience before or after the semester. For example, a pregnant student could be accommodated so as to finish her student teaching experience after the end of the semester. These circumstances are approved on a case-by-case basis with the Student Teaching Services Office. Beginning a semester early or ending late may have financial aid ramifications as listed below.

The Financial Aid office at BYU-I sent this letter on Dec. 16, 2020 to the Dean of Teacher Preparation Programs:

Upon review of the Department of Education regulations and discussions with colleagues at National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), we’ve determined that student teaching and internships starting and ending outside of the standard term may be accommodated. However, please be aware of some guidelines below:

Flexibilities are allowed when the experience is outside of the control of the university.
Program/major must require ALL students to complete student teaching (if education) or an internship experience (for other majors) to qualify for this flexibility.
Credit hours associated with practicum must be associated with the term in which most of the training occurs, even if starting and ending dates do not exactly align with term dates and/or overlap with another term.
- Please keep in mind that students with a T grade will not receive future disbursements until the T grade is resolved.
Financial aid cannot be disbursed until the start of the term for which the term the course is registered.
Financial aid will not be released until prior semester grades are received.

Student Teaching Interview Process

In order to create more of a co-selection process between BYU-I, partner districts and candidates, student teaching candidates participate in an interview day. Representatives from our various partner districts are present on campus for an evening “meet and greet” where candidates can browse the various districts and ask questions about the district, job prospects, etc.

The following day, candidates interview with several districts in which they have interest. Districts rate each candidate. At the end of the day, candidates rate their preferences of student teaching sites and districts rate which interviewees they would like to come to their school.

The following day, the Student Teaching Services Office and the Area Coordinators meet in a “Draft” process. In this meeting, the ratings from candidates, the districts as well as the needs and vacancies of the various districts are all taken into account and student placements are finalized.

Although not perfect, this process attempts to incorporate the needs and desires of all stakeholders in the process.