Transferring a California teaching licence to Nevada

Route

Which regime applies

Route

Which regime applies

If you are applying for a license with Nevada and currently hold valid, non-conditional, non-provisional licensure from another jurisdiction within the US or US territory, you may be eligible for reciprocal licensure.

Who qualifiesTo confirm with the agency

The licence must be non-provisional, non-conditional and unexpired

Applicants who hold a valid, non-conditional, non-provisional, and unexpired educator license from another state or country may be eligible for reciprocal licensure in Nevada.

ambiguous_confirm_with_state for any first-tier credential whose name does not say “provisional” but which is issued before all requirements are complete — a California Preliminary credential being the obvious case. The page does not define “non-provisional”. Nevada takes New York’s position on expired licences, not Georgia’s or California’s.

Exemption

Reciprocity usually waives Nevada’s tests

Reciprocal licensing, in most cases, will waive testing requirements for Nevada and allow NDE staff to do the evaluation based on a license for license basis.

“In most cases” — the page does not say which cases are excluded.

How it goes wrong

You get the CLOSEST Nevada licence, not an equivalent one

Licenses and endorsements will be reciprocated to the closest available license and endorsement available per Nevada regulations.

Nevada’s bands are narrow: secondary is 7-12 and middle school is 7-9. “Closest” can mean a narrower authorisation than the one held — a California preschool-to-12 Single Subject credential has nothing wider to land on.

How it goes wrong

Two background checks — and skipping NDE’s costs the whole fee

Please note that your employer and the NDE do not share your information and you will (in most cases) be required to do two separate background checks. Failure to background check for the NDE will result in denial of licensure and then you will need to reapply and repay the fees.

A teacher fingerprinted by their new Nevada district who assumes that covers the state loses the $210 application fee.

How it goes wrong

Living out of state forces you onto fingerprint cards

Livescan submissions from out-of-state vendors will not be accepted by the Department of Public Safety for background processing. Anyone who resides out of state and wants to apply for or renew a Nevada educator license must submit a fingerprint card with his or her application.

How long

Background checks: four weeks at best

Depending on circumstances, we may receive criminal histories in as little as four weeks, or it may take much longer.

NDE states it has “no control over the time frame involved” because the FBI and the Nevada Department of Public Safety process the checks.

Fee

New application

$210.00 – New Applications (or reapplying of previous/expired licenses).

Renewals are $180.00; a one-time six-month extension is $30.00. After New Jersey’s $170, Nevada is the most expensive destination in this project at application.

How it goes wrong

No fee is ever refunded

Per NAC 391.045, ALL licensing fees are nonrefundable, once you have paid through OPAL you are not entitled to any refunds

How it goes wrong

Praxis scores older than ten years do not count

all applicants for a Nevada educator license are required to pass the Praxis series of competency tests, which are administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) completed within ten (10) years prior to application for licensure.

Reciprocity waives testing “in most cases”. Where it does not, a mid-career teacher’s decade-old scores are unusable — Florida’s trap, in Nevada.

How it goes wrong

NDE will not look at anything before you pay

Unfortunately, we are unable to evaluate transcripts or other education-related documents without a submitted application.

With a nonrefundable $210 fee, this means the applicant pays before learning whether it works — the same posture as New York.

Not publishedNot published by the agencyTo confirm with the agency

A compact member that never mentions the compact

ambiguous_confirm_with_state. Whether Nevada operates the compact for incoming teachers is not established by any captured source. Florida is the other compact member in this project that is silent about it on its own pages; Pennsylvania is the member that operates it openly.

Not publishedNot published by the agencyTo confirm with the agency

No application processing time is published

Processing times will vary depending on multiple factors, including but not limited to the time of year that the application is submitted, current application volume, and if a background check is required for the application.

ambiguous_confirm_with_state. No processing time is asserted on this site for Nevada.

Order of steps

OPAL account, application and fees, then fingerprints

An applicant who chooses to submit fingerprints electronically via Livescan must first register for an account through OPAL to apply for licensure and pay licensing fees.

NDE stopped accepting paper applications on 1 July 2018. It will not review transcripts or documents before an application is submitted.

Credential tier

The preliminary credential is a five-year clock

The preliminary credential is issued for a maximum of five years. … If requirements for the clear credential are not completed before the expiration of the preliminary, the holder will be unable to teach in California's public schools with that credential until those requirements are met and the document is renewed.

Credential tier

Preliminary Single Subject Teaching Credential

The preliminary credential is issued for a maximum of five years.

Leaflet CL-560C carries a printed revision date of May 2021.

Credential tier

Moving from Preliminary to Clear

Credential tierTo confirm with the agency

California defines its elementary credential by setting, not by grade band

The Multiple Subject Teaching Credential authorizes the holder to teach all subjects in a self-contained classroom, such as the classrooms in most elementary schools, in grades preschool, K-12, or in classes organized primarily for adults.

What is unresolved: every receiving state we have researched asks whether the incoming certificate is “comparable” in subject and grade level. Texas’s Core Subjects is EC-6, Colorado’s Elementary Education is K-6, Florida’s is K-6. California’s is none of those — it is a setting authorisation. How a receiving state maps it is that state’s determination and no published text we have found resolves it.

Money

Application fee, nonrefundable under NAC 391.045

Money

The same fee again, if you skip NDE’s own background check

Time

Fingerprint cards by post, and at least four weeks

Blocked route

A narrower licence than the one you hold