Transferring a California teaching licence to Nevada

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

$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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Individuals prepared outside of California who have less than two years of out-of-state full-time teaching experience (see Terms and Definitions) may qualify for a California teaching credential by documenting all of the following in their application packet:

The out-of-state credential does NOT have to be valid at the time of application, and a photocopy front and back is acceptable verification. Both are unusually forgiving.

Letter from the out-of-state employer verifying at least two years of out-of-state full-time teaching experience accompanied by two satisfactory performance evaluations (see Terms and Definitions).

The performance evaluations are the part people cannot retrieve later. Request them before leaving the district.

An individual issued a professional level teaching credential by another state or U.S. territory with a middle school or departmentalized classroom teaching authorization that is not comparable and that does not list a comparable authorization may verify subject matter competence for the Single Subject Credential with a degree major or 32 semester units (or the equivalent in quarter units).

Thirty-two semester units is roughly a full academic year of study. It is the price of a grade-band or subject mismatch.

Earn an authorization to teach English learners by one of the following methods:

A teacher whose home-state credential already carries a full English learner authorisation can submit a copy of it. Whether a particular state’s ESL or bilingual endorsement counts as "full" is not defined in this leaflet.