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Lessons · Teaching · the certificate of clearance and fingerprinting

The certificate of clearance: the first document, and the one people forget

Before a California candidate may work with pupils, the Commission issues a certificate of clearance, which is the record that fingerprints were submitted through Live Scan and the background check came back clear; it comes before student teaching and before any credential.

Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.

What it is for

A candidate turned up for the first day of her placement and was turned away at the school office, because the district could not put an adult with children on the strength of an enrolment letter. She had assumed the background check belonged with the credential at the end. It belongs at the beginning, and it is the document that lets the year start at all.

How to think about it

Apply for it as soon as you are admitted, and treat it as the first item on the road rather than a formality attached to the credential. Book the electronic fingerprinting appointment in the same week you apply. Then keep the confirmation, because a programme or a district will ask for it before they will let you into a classroom.

Worked example

Applied for as soon as the programme admits me, not when the placement starts
It is the first document on the road, not the last.
Electronic fingerprinting appointment booked the same week
Two agencies read the prints, and both of them take their own time.
Confirmation kept, because the school office will ask for it
No clearance, no classroom, however good your reason.
Certificate of clearance first, preliminary credential afterwards
The order is fixed and it is not negotiable.

Your turn

Name the electronic fingerprinting service California uses.

Fingerprints in California are submitted through  Scan

The trap

Thinking the background check happens once, at the end, with the credential. In California it is a separate document at the start, and a candidate without it cannot begin the placement that the credential depends on.

Practise the certificate of clearance and fingerprinting on HoneA question on it now, a real problem where there is one, and it is remembered for review. Free, no email needed.