The Virgin Islands Board of Career and Technical Education has adopted a new policy allowing qualifying provisional instructors to bypass the traditional student-teaching credit requirement if they have already completed a full year of classroom instruction in the territory.
The measure, approved during a board meeting Wednesday afternoon, is intended to help address the shortage of vocational teachers across the Virgin Islands by removing what board members described as an unnecessary barrier for tradespeople and industry professionals already teaching in local classrooms under temporary or provisional licenses.
Under the new guidelines, provisional career and technical education instructors will be exempt from the student-teaching requirement for standard and advanced certification licenses if they provide verified proof from a school or district administrator that they have completed one full year of classroom instruction in the territory.
Board Chair Anthony Mardenborough Jr., who crafted and proposed the policy, said the change is meant to help move temporary instructors toward permanent certification. He noted that the board’s bylaws limit how many provisional or temporary licenses can be issued consecutively to one person, creating strict cutoffs for instructors who have not yet secured full certification.
Mr. Mardenborough said he initially considered removing the student-teaching credit requirement entirely, but later decided that a narrower exemption would better preserve the rule for applicants who have not previously taught.
“Originally my intention was to remove it, and then I decided let's not remove it, because we still have applicants who might not necessarily have taught before,” he said. “So I decided to do an exemption instead... I believe this will be an incentive to encourage our CTE instructors to continue pursuing their full certification.”
The policy adjustment was influenced by a recent legislative fact-finding tour of vocational programs in Massachusetts, which Mr. Mardenborough attended with other CTE officials. During discussions with mainland lawmakers and education officials, the practicality of requiring active teachers to complete student-teaching credits became a major point of discussion.
Mr. Mardenborough framed the exemption as a practical response to the territory’s vocational teacher shortage. If an instructor has already been trusted to manage a local classroom full time for a year, he argued, requiring a separate student-teaching credit becomes redundant.
He emphasized that the exemption applies only to the student-teaching requirement. All other coursework and educational requirements for standard and advanced certification remain mandatory.
“As we know, career and technical education, just like any other teacher, we have a deficit in the territory and across the world, and so we’re trying our best to keep the instructors we have that did not meet this particular credit as yet,” he added.
The board’s action is designed to retain experienced provisional instructors already working in the system while encouraging them to complete the remaining steps toward permanent certification.
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