Public School Teacher Lacks Teacher's Certificate

When Maribel Heredia's son told her that his first-grade teacher was "going to college" and that there would be a substitute in the classroom two days a week, she started asking questions.

Only then did she learn that the teacher the Hayward Unified School District labeled "highly qualified" was still a student herself.

How did this happen? A provision that allows interns to teach.
The provision, which covers teachers in alternative certification programs, allows more than 10,000 interns in California to be classified as highly qualified, the lawsuit claims.

Nationwide, there are tens of thousands of "highly qualified" interns in the classroom, although there is no way to know the exact number because states are not required to report it, said John Affeldt, managing attorney with Public Advocates, a San Francisco law firm that is among the parties to the lawsuit.

"It seems wrong that a school district can say 100 percent of its teachers are highly qualified, when in reality 40 percent of the teachers are still in training," she said.

Read the rest in The Sun Herald.