Elimination of the General Core in Liberal Arts and Sciences Requirement for Certification
April 12, 2022. At its April 2022 meeting, the New York State Board of Regents voted to eliminate the general core in liberal arts and sciences (LAS) requirement for certification, which included coursework in the following areas: artistic expression, communication, information retrieval, concepts in history and social sciences, humanities, a world language other than English, scientific and mathematical processes, and written analysis and expression. The general core in LAS will no longer be a certification requirement as of April 27, 2022.
Please note that the content core requirement remains unchanged for all certificates, including generalist certificates, and is still in effect. For example, applicants who are seeking the following Initial/Professional generalist certificates through the "Individual Evaluation" pathway must complete 30 semester hours in the liberal arts and sciences, including six semester hours in each of the three subject areas of mathematical processes, scientific processes, and concepts in historical and social studies, for the content core requirement: Early Childhood Education, Childhood Education, Generalist in Middle Childhood Education, Students with Disabilities (SWD) (Birth-Grade 2), and SWD (Grades 1-6). Please see the Search Certification Requirements webpage for the content core requirement for all certificates and their pathways, including other pathways for the above generalist certificates.
All active teacher certificate applications that are submitted before April 27, 2022, and have one or more of the general core in LAS requirements listed as “unmet”, will have these requirement(s) automatically marked as “exempted” in the TEACH system on April 27, 2022. Applications for teacher certification will no longer include the general core in LAS as a requirement beginning April 27, 2022.
In addition, if the one or more of the general core in LAS requirements are the only remaining requirement(s) for certification on the application (i.e., all other requirements for certification are met), the requirement(s) will automatically be marked as “exempted” in the TEACH system and the application will be approved on April 27, 2022. On the following day, the certificate will either be issued or be in “Evaluation Complete – Pending Final Review” status, which is described on Status of Your Application webpage.