How to Become a Teacher in Tennessee With an Online Program If You Already Have a Bachelor’s Degree
The coffee in my mug had gone lukewarm, my two kids were asleep down the hall, and I was staring at a stack of my old college biology textbooks on the kitchen counter. My sister, who teaches 4th grade in Murfreesboro, was on speakerphone, listening to me ramble about how tired I was of my remote corporate marketing job and how I kept daydreaming about leading a high school biology class. “You already have a bachelor’s,” she said. “Why don’t you look at online programs for Tennessee? I know three people who did it that way.” That was two years ago, and I just finished my first semester student teaching at my local high school outside Nashville. I’ve gotten a dozen messages from friends and acquaintances asking how I pulled it off, so I figured I’d lay it out plain, like it actually went for me.
I spent the first weekend after that call scrolling mindlessly through every education blog and state website I could find, and I left more confused than I started. I’d assumed I needed to go back for a full second bachelor’s degree, quit my job, and take on tens of thousands of dollars in debt. That felt impossible with a mortgage and two kids in elementary school. What I didn’t know then is that Tennessee has a clear alternative pathway for people who already have a four-year degree from an accredited college, and most of the coursework for that pathway can be done online.
I saved 17 bookmarks to my browser and ate three chocolate chip cookies while my husband watched SEC football in the living room that Saturday, and the first big lesson I learned is this: not all online teaching programs work for Tennessee. The state only issues licenses to people who complete a program approved by the Tennessee State Board of Education. I almost signed up for a $2,000 national online program that sounded too good to be true, before my sister reminded me it wasn’t on the state’s approved list. That would’ve been a total waste of time and money. The full list of approved alternative preparation programs is on the Tennessee Department of Education website, and it’s sorted by in-person, hybrid, and fully online, so that’s the first place you should go.
Once I filtered for fully online programs, I had three options to pick from. The one I chose cost around $6,000 total, which is less than a single semester at most in-state universities. Before I signed up, I checked for state financial help, and that’s the second thing most people miss: Tennessee offers serious help for people going into high-need fields like math, science, special education, and career and technical education. I filled out a one-page application for the Tennessee Math and Science Teacher Scholarship, and got $5,000 to put toward my tuition. All I had to agree to was teach three years in a Tennessee public school, which I was planning to do anyway. The TEACH Grant also covers a few thousand more for people who qualify, so it’s worth spending 30 minutes filling out the applications before you start.
Next came the testing requirements. Tennessee requires the Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators test for all new teachers, unless you have a minimum 3.0 GPA from your existing bachelor’s, or qualifying scores on old SAT or ACT tests. I had a 3.2 GPA from my first degree, so I only had to take the Praxis Subject Assessment for biology, which is the test that proves you know your content area. I studied for three weeks using free Khan Academy videos and a $20 used study guide off Amazon, and passed on the first try. Most of the approved online programs include free Praxis prep in your tuition, so you don’t have to pay extra for that if you do need to take the Core.
For the first year, I worked my full-time marketing job and did my coursework around my schedule. All my classes were asynchronous, which meant I could watch lectures and do assignments after the kids went to bed, usually 10 to 12 hours a week. There were weeks I wanted to quit: last spring, I had a big product launch due at work, my oldest had a soccer tournament every weekend, and I had to write a 10-page unit plan on cell division. I sat on the couch crying for 20 minutes one night, then my husband brought me another coffee and I split the assignment into 30-minute chunks over three days. It wasn’t glamorous, but it worked. The program paired me with a local mentor teacher before I even started student teaching, so I could sit in on her classes once a month on Saturdays if I wanted, or text her questions about lesson planning at 9 p.m. on a Sunday.
The one mistake I made that almost set me back a whole semester was waiting to do my required background check and fingerprinting. The state requires you to complete this before you can start any field work or student teaching, it costs about $50, and you do it at your local police station. I put it off for six weeks because I kept forgetting to make an appointment, and it took almost three weeks to process. Do that the week you get accepted to your program, don’t wait.
When it was time for my 12-week student teaching placement, the program helped me get placed at the public high school 10 minutes from my house. I cut my marketing hours back to part time for those 12 weeks, and I’d saved up a small buffer to cover the difference in pay, which I recommend planning for early. I just wrapped up my placement last month, and got a full-time job offer for next fall at the same school.
I still have that stack of old biology textbooks on my kitchen counter, now a little more dog-eared from all my lesson planning. Next week I’m going to the high school to meet my future department head and pick out shelves for my classroom. There’s still a lot I don’t know—how I’ll handle back-to-school night, how I’ll adjust to waking up at 6 a.m. five days a week instead of rolling out of bed 10 minutes before my first work call. But for anyone sitting where I was two years ago, drinking cold coffee and daydreaming about switching to teaching: it doesn’t require quitting everything tomorrow or going into six figures of student debt. You can do it part time, online, around your existing life, as long as you check the state’s approved list first and get your fingerprinting done early. It’s messy, some nights you’ll cry over unit plans, but it’s doable.
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