Students With Disabilities All Grades (P-12) Certification

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Updates to Students with Disabilities Certification

Notice: This Announcement is temporary, until SUNY Old Westbury programs become SWD All Grades and NYSED implements a new SWD All Grades CST.

New Students With Disabilities (All Grades) Certificate Created

At its September 2022 meeting, the New York State Board of Regents voted to establish the Students with Disabilities (All Grades) certificate effective September 28, 2022. The new certificate permits individuals to teach students with disabilities in pre-Kindergarten through grade 12 in New York State public schools.

The SWD All-Grades certificate became operational in TEACH on 1/13/2023.  

NYSED Office of Higher Education

This certification will give current holders of the SWD (1-6) the ability to work at additional grade levels (PK, K, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12).

This certification is not connected to any SUNY Old Westbury programs at this time.  No school code exists, and at the current time no higher education institution can recommend a candidate for the certification on the TEACH system.  Therefore, if you graduated and would like to apply for this certification it will be an individual pathway application. 

There are 3 exams required for this certificate:

  1. New York State Teacher Certification Exam - Educating All Students Test (EAS)
  2. Content Specialty Test (CST) - Students With Disabilities or Safety Net Students With Disabilities
  3. Content Specialty Test (CST) - Specified Multi-Subject Examination (Until a SWD All-Grades exam is created in the future, any of the following Multi-Subject exams is acceptable):
    1.  Multi-Subject: Teachers of Childhood (Grade 1 - Grade 6)
    2. Multi-Subject: Teachers of Middle Childhood (Grade 5 - Grade 9)
    3. Multi-Subject: Secondary Teachers (Grade 7 - Grade 12)  OR  
    4. the former Multi-Subject (002/902)

Note: The Multi-Subject: Teachers of Early Childhood (Birth - Grade 2) is not acceptable.