Office of Teaching Initiatives

	THE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT / THE UNIVERSITY OF THE NEW YORK / ALBANY, NY 12234 Assistant Commissioner of Office of Teaching Initiatives
Date:	July 10, 2009
To:	Deans of Teacher Education Programs
From:	Robert G. Bentley
Subject:	Internship Certificate Fee

I write to update you on recent action by the Board of Regents.

At its June 22-23, 2009 meeting, the Board of Regents removed the exemption of the Internship certificate from the regular $50 fee for all college-recommended certificates.  This action will become effective on July 16, 2009.  In current regulations, Internship certificates were exempted from a fee in large part because, historically, colleges applied for Internship certificates for their students, making it administratively difficult to collect a fee from the graduate students and the number of such certificates issued was relatively small.  Today, graduate students file their own applications for the certificate.  Therefore, the mechanism exists to collect the fee directly from the applicants.  Over the past several years, the number of Internship certificates issued has increased dramatically. Ten years ago, the Office of Teaching Initiatives issued fewer than 500 Internship certificates annually.  In 2007-08, we issued more than 3,000. 
         
All applications submitted for Internship certificates after July 15, 2009 will require the same $50 fee that is required for any other college-recommended certificate.  Applications that were submitted before July 16, 2009 will not require the fee.

The Office of Teaching Initiatives will post appropriate notification on our Web site.  Please notify any affected students in your graduate programs.  Any questions regarding the implementation of this change may be addressed to Deborah Horton at (518) 474-4661.  Thank you for your cooperation.

cc:     Joseph P. Frey
Richard Gervais
Certification Officers/College TEACH Users
Deborah Horton