Public School Leadership (Post Master’s Certificate)

Program Admission Requirements:

Applicants must:

• have completed a Master’s degree in Education or a related field from an accredited institution.
• hold or be eligible to hold a North Carolina A teaching license or a comparable license for another state.
• have completed at least 3 years of successful full-time teaching or equivalent experience in public schools. Pre-school teachers may include private sector experience.
• document ability to succeed at graduate level studies by meeting one of the following:
  • a master’s degree with a preferred 3.5 GPA from an accredited university in an educationally-related field or
  • a doctoral degree from an accredited university in an educationally-related field
• submit three letters of recommendation from employers or former instructors who are in a position to judge the applicant’s aptitude for graduate study and potential as a school leader. One recommendation must be from a current immediate supervisor.
• have completed (or take) graduate courses in research, curriculum, educational foundations and advanced psychology as part of their master’s degree program.

Program Description:

The certificate in Public School Leadership is earned through the completion of a one-year, three semester graduate program.  Students will take eight, three-credit courses, for a total of 24 credit-hours.  This graduate program utilizes a hybrid (face-to-face and on-line) course delivery model.  Four of the eight classes (two occurring in the fall and two occurring in the spring) will require face-to-face attendance.  For each of these four classes, students will attend eight days of face-to-face instruction for a total of sixteen, face-to-face class days per semester.  Each face-to-face class consists of a full-day, six-hour session.  All face-to-face sessions will be held at our Biltmore Park instructional site in Asheville, NC.  The remaining instructional hours for the courses will be delivered in an on-line format.

Students will take prescribed, three-credit courses across three semesters. Students will take three courses in the fall semester, three courses in the spring semester, and two in the summer. An internship, spanning across an entire school-year, is included in the prescribed course sequence.  Internships are competency based and involve many aspects of a principal’s responsibilities, including leadership of an improvement initiative.

A student who cannot complete the required courses in a given semester will be required to petition the faculty to change to a different cohort. The program requires completion of the certificate within 6 years of admission. Certificate and licensure requirements are coordinated throughout the program but are independently granted by NCDPI. Certificate completion does not guarantee licensure recommendation.