How to Get a Teaching License in Iowa Through an Online Alternative Pathway: What I’ve Learned
Last January, I sat at my kitchen table at 9pm, half a peanut butter sandwich congealing next to my laptop, a pile of ungraded second-grade math papers stacked by my cold coffee mug. I’ve been a paraeducator at my small town elementary in northeast Iowa for six years, and that night I was finally digging into the question I’d put off for a year: how do I actually get my teaching license? I don’t have the option to quit my job, pull my kid out of school to move closer to a university, or sit in classes two nights a week an hour and a half away in Des Moines. I’d heard about alternative pathways to licensure in Iowa, but all I could find was info on the traditional in-person internship program. I wanted to know if online could actually work.
I’ve spent the last few months comparing the two most common alternative routes for people who already have a bachelor’s degree and want to switch to teaching: the Iowa Teacher Internship Program (ITIP), which is the well-known in-person option, and state-approved online alternative programs. For most people I know who’ve done ITIP, it works well. You get a full-time teaching job first, complete coursework part-time while you work, and get your license in 1-2 years. But it wasn’t a fit for me. My district couldn’t guarantee me a full-time classroom spot right away, and the closest ITIP program required in-person classes twice a week. That 3-hour round trip drive after work, plus childcare for my 8-year-old, just wasn’t feasible for my budget or schedule.
That’s when I started digging into online options, and I quickly learned the first big rule I wish someone had told me upfront: only use programs approved by the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners (BOEE). My cousin tried to cut corners a few years back and signed up for a cheap national online program that wasn’t BOEE-approved. She wasted three months and $1,500 before she found out the BOEE wouldn’t accept her coursework. The first concrete step I took was pulling up the BOEE’s public list of approved educator preparation programs, filtering for alternative route, and crossing off any program that wasn’t explicitly listed as approved for Iowa licensure. That took me a Saturday afternoon, and it saved me from making the same mistake my cousin did.
After filtering, I had three fully online (mostly, anyway) programs to compare. I was most worried about field experience and student teaching, the big question everyone asks about online teaching programs. Would I have to quit my job and move to do student teaching at a random school across the state? Turns out, all the approved Iowa online alternative programs let you complete your supervised field hours at the school you already work at, if you’re already a para or sub like I am. My principal already knows my work, agreed to act as my site supervisor, and I just log extra hours leading small groups or planning lessons after my regular para shift. That’s a huge advantage over most in-person ITIP programs I looked at, which require you to do a full semester of student teaching at an outside site before you start your internship.
Entry requirements are straightforward for most online alternative programs in Iowa: you need a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college, with a minimum 2.5 GPA, same as any other alternative route. If your bachelor’s is in the content area you want to teach, you’ll have fewer prerequisite classes to take. My degree is in English from University of Northern Iowa, and I want to teach elementary, so I needed two extra prereqs: child development and early literacy instruction. Both were offered online through my program, so I knocked those out in the first six months.
Cost-wise, online came out ahead for me, too. The ITIP program near me cost around $12,000 total, not including gas, parking, and occasional overnight stays for weekend workshops, which would have added another $2,000 over two years. The online program I picked cost just under $10,000 total. The only in-person requirement was a 3-day orientation at the program’s Cedar Rapids campus, which I did over a long weekend when my mom watched my son. That’s the only extra travel I’ve had to do in 18 months.
It’s not perfect, of course. The biggest downside of online is the lack of built-in accountability. There’s no weekly in-person class to force you to show up, no professor reminding you of deadlines when you walk in the door. Two months ago, my son got pneumonia, I missed a week of work, and I got three weeks behind on coursework. I had to beg my advisor for an extension, and I spent two 12-hour weekends catching up. If you need regular in-person check-ins to stay on track, online probably isn’t for you. I met my friend Sarah, who did ITIP three years ago, at the grocery store last month, and she said she never would have finished without the weekly study groups she had with her cohort. For her, the in-person structure was non-negotiable.
When you finish the program, the process is the same as any other pathway: you have to pass the Praxis Core and your content area Praxis test, same as everyone who gets a teaching license in Iowa. Once you pass those, the BOEE issues you a standard teaching license, no different than if you went the traditional on-campus route. That’s another question I had early on, and the BOEE confirmed it: there’s no difference on your license between online alternative and traditional pathways.
I’m halfway through now, and I’ll finish next spring if I stay on track. Some nights I fall asleep on the couch with my laptop open to a lecture on classroom management, and I wonder if I should have just waited until my son is older to do this. But then last week, I led a small reading group for three struggling first graders, and one of them told me I was his favorite teacher, and it feels worth it. Online isn’t the right fit for everyone switching to teaching in Iowa. But if you live outside a big city, have family commitments, or already work in a school and want to keep your job while you get licensed, it’s a real option that more people should know about. I still have tests to take and hours to log, but right now, it’s fitting my life better than any other option I found.
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