Paul Mannet

It will take you four years to earn a bachelor’s degree to teach kindergarten. In addition to your degree in early childhood or a closely related subject, you’ll need to complete your student teaching requirements and certification tests, which vary from one state to another, to realize your goal of becoming a full-fledged kindergarten teacher. Exactly how long it takes you to end up actually teaching young children will depend on key factors like:

• The type of college degree you pursue.
• How much work you want to do to “accelerate” your education.
• Which state you want to teach in.
• Whether you get your kindergarten teaching degree through a school in a same state you want to teach in.
• What kind of public, private or charter school you’d like to get a job at.

Here’s a look at the all the requirements you’ll need to fulfill beyond your kindergarten teaching degree, and how many years it will take you to reach the point where you are running your own class as a paid professional.

Key Skills For A Kindergarten Teacher Job

Almost everyone who succeeds as an instructor at this level has an abiding love of working with young children. Without a doubt, one of the unique joys of kindergarten teaching is the fact that it allows you to fulfill a goal most educators hold dear: to teach not just a subject, but to develop a whole person. Being able to focus the emotional development, social skills and basic thinking skills of young children can give you an opportunity to have a lifelong impact on your students that teachers don’t necessarily get at higher grade levels. Although most schools ask the teacher to apply some type of curriculum to kindergarten, they also tend to place a high value on creative teaching approaches involving games, props and play acting, which can make it satisfying and fun work for the teacher. At this level, the teacher also tends to get a good deal of time to work with each student on a one-to-one basis.

These are the steps you must take to become a kindergarten teacher and how long each one will take.

Confirm that you’ll like teaching kindergarten early.
Time investment: very little.

Before jumping into a degree program for early childhood learning, you can make some smart moves to confirm it’s the right investment for you. You should begin with an awareness that along with the rewards of kindergarten teaching, there are stresses. More than any other job skill, you’ll need patience to deal with a class of 5 and 6 year olds five days a week. Children’s moods can vary wildly from day to day at this age, and the first year in school is a time when some kids just begin to show evidence of learning disabilities and delays that may require special attention. Nowadays, there’s also rising pressure to get kids reading and learning at a higher level – to make kindergarten more “academic.” This can put the teacher in a position of having to push some children to learn in ways they may not be truly ready for.

How Do I Know If I’ll Be A Good Kindergarten Teacher?

Before you start your college education in teaching, do some some real world research. Test yourself by volunteering to be a teacher’s assistant at a school or day care facility in your town. Alternatively, you might ask an experienced kindergarten teacher if you can sit in on his or her classroom to see what the work is like. Trying out the classroom environment can help you save yourself a lot of wasted effort, particularly if you realize that you’re not cut out for this kind of work. But if you find you’re comfortable in the kindergarten environment, you’ll feel very confident as you work your way through the degree and certification requirements needed to get a real job teaching kindergarten.

Another good tip is to give some thought to where you might want to live and work geographically for the long term. This can be tough to decide if you’re just coming out of high school, but if you’re an adult making a career change into teaching, you may have a better sense of where you’d like to live. It’s not critical that you get a kindergarten teaching degree in the state where you want to work – in fact, online teaching degrees that are national in scope are extremely popular — but you can, in some cases, get through the teaching certification process a bit faster if you go to a school in the state where hope to work. It’s also true that many elementary schools have a tendency to hire graduates of schools in their area.

What Degrees Do You Need To Become A Kindergarten Teacher?

It’s possible to get hired to work in nursery schools and other Pre-K settings with an associate’s degree or, in some limited cases, just a high school diploma and a teaching certificate. But if you want to work as kindergarten teacher in a full-fledged elementary school, you’ll need a bachelor’s degree.

Kindergarten teacher education.
Time investment: 4 years.

You can teach kindergarten with an early childhood education degree, but other types of education degrees can help you reach this goal. Virtually all these programs, which can be either BA (Bachelor of Arts) or BS (Bachelor of Science), will generally require you to earn 120 credits and will take four years to complete if you work at a normal pace. Don’t be frightened off, however if you see a credit requirement that’s more than 120. Because the way colleges define the term “credit,” there can be huge variations. Purdue University Global, for instance, requires 180 “quarter credit hours” for completion of it’s online BS in Early Childhood Development, but it’s generally completed in four years like just about all the 120 credit teaching programs out there. How long it ultimately takes you to get an early childhood teaching degree will, of course, depend on how much time you can dedicate to your schoolwork. Though it typically takes four years, it can take more if you attend school on a part-time basis.

Can You Teach Kindergarten With An Elementary Education Degree?

Generally, you can teach any grades from kindergarten right up to 8th grade with your degree in elementary ed. You do not necessarily have to take a degree that’s called “early childhood education.”

Tip: Spend some time researching the requirements you’ll have to get a teaching certification in your state before signing up for a degree program. Some states work closely with teaching colleges and impose unique requirements that can make it take longer to finish your degree.

Tip: A kindergarten teacher degree online can offer you options to get through your education faster. Because online schools have many adult students who are in a hurry to complete a career change, they tend to offer more options for accelerated degrees than traditional universities.

Alternative Path To Teaching If You Already Have a Bachelor’s Degree
Time Investment: 2 years.

If you’ve already completed a bachelor’s degree in a non-teaching specialty and have decided on a new direction or a career change, you can look at master’s programs that can get you trained and certified as a teacher. These Master of Education or M.Ed. programs generally take two years to complete. But if you are currently working you may have to pursue school on a full-time basis, which can mean it will take 3 – 4 years to complete your degree. The good news is that many of these programs, particularly those given by online schools that focus on adult learners, will move you through the process of certification, including background checks, student teaching and other requirements. Key subjects you’ll study in an online master of education program include: instruction for young learners, strategies for unique learners, evaluating students, teaching many different content areas, how to develop curriculum and English as a second language teaching.

Although you may need to complete some certification requirements in the state you wish to teach in, many online or classroom-based M.Ed. programs will give you the pedagogy, content and Praxis exams you need towards your teacher certification.

Student teaching.
Time investment: One to three semesters, within your college degree program.

Virtually all teaching bachelor degree programs require you to take a practicum, a student teaching requirement or both. These are two slightly different things. A practicum is a classroom experience where the teacher in training works as a partner with a classroom teacher, and it’s a part of one of your teaching courses. You will receive feedback but not necessarily a grade for your practicum – you’ll get a grade for the course that the practicum was part of. Student teaching (sometimes called “demonstration teaching”) means taking more full control of a classroom, and possibly even meeting with parents and the PTA. You’ll almost certainly be expected to create and present good quality lesson plans. Student teaching is considered a free-standing course unto itself, and you will receive a grade based on observation of your work. While classroom training work can be hard, student teaching and practicums are tremendously beneficial, as they can increase your confidence about becoming a kindergarten teacher. Remember that when it comes to student teaching, different states have different minimum requirements. They can have an influence on how much time you’ll have to spend doing this type of work before graduating from your school.

Tip: Online teaching degree schools also require student teaching. They generally have specialists who can set you up to do your in-classroom work under an authorized observer in your local area.

Is education an easy major?

Some have written that it is one of the easiest courses of study you can take in college, since so much of it is based on common sense. But different people respond to the curriculum in different ways. Here’s a post by one teacher who took an alternative career path because of difficulties she saw in a standard teaching degree program.

Teaching Certification
Time investment: Varies from state to state, but generally one or two years at most.

To teach in any state in the U.S., you will need to take and pass a certification test. Keep in mind that it may be possible to do this while you are still in college working on your bachelor degree program – obviously a desirable approach to get you out into a teaching job faster. But many teaching college grads begin working toward their certification after they’ve finished their degree.
You’ll need to take an approved teacher prep program. These types of programs are approved by state organizations with names ranging from “education professional standards board” to a basic state board of education. But there will only be one credible approval board for each state, which you can quickly locate through internet research. Some schools will actually hire you and allow you to work on getting certified while you teach. But they may only give you up to one year to complete this process.

What Tests Do You Take To Be Certified As A Kindergarten Teacher?

In virtually every state, you’ll need to take an appropriate course and test for your particular area of teaching specialty, sometimes called a “content specialty” test or “Praxis” test for professional subject areas. For kindergarten teachers, most states offer a certificate for “birth through kindergarten.” Many states also require unique courses for certification that are not focused on academics, but which might loosely be referred to as “sensitivity training.” New York State, for example, requires all prospective teachers to take a course called “Dignity of All Students.”

Be area that several steps in the teaching certification process can involve fees. A background check, for example, is required for teacher certification in most states. That can cost you $100. or more. There may be a fee of $100 to $150 for simply submitting your teacher certification application.

Your state educator preparation program is likely to include an in-classroom teaching element and a test or series of tests. The testing varies tremendously from one state to the next. Many states have created several of their own tests to certify teachers. Again, some quick internet research will show you which organization you need to apply to for prep courses and certification tests in your own state.

Teaching In A Different State Than You Went To College In

If you have gone through the preparation process or even taken and passed the certification test in one state and then decided you would rather work in a different state, you may be in luck. Many states have “reciprocity” agreements under which they accept credentials teachers have earned from each other.

Tip: As you work through your student teaching, prepare a “teaching portfolio” with your evaluations, a list of the classes you’ve taught and a statement of your philosophy of teaching. When it’s time to go job hunting, it will help employers to see you as a polished, professional educator.

Tip: Get a specialty teaching certification. Either within your bachelor degree program or right afterward, you might consider getting certified in an in-demand specialty like English as second language or special education. Some of these certifications can be done through online colleges.

How Long To Find A Kindergarten Teaching Job And What Salary Can You Expect?
Time investment: Should take less than one year, though there’s no guarantee.

What’s the employment picture for kindergarten teachers? According to the,
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (USBLS), kindergarten and elementary school teachers across the U.S. had a median salary of about $58,000. per year. Payscale.com estimates that
kindergarten teachers earn an average of $40,128. But that number can be pushed higher by bonuses, and at public schools in particular, kindergarten teachers may receive significant benefits packages. Payscale.com pegs the full range of kindergarten teacher salaries at $27,000. to $57,000.

How Many Jobs Are There For Kindergarten Teachers?

According to USBS, there were over 1.5 million jobs in this specialty. The immediate job grown outlook, for 2018 to 2019, was estimated at 3%. That’s a bit lower than the average, but the agency notes that the picture varies significantly from one region to the next.
What kind of school to you want to teach kindergarten in?

What’s The Best Kind Of School To Teach Kindergarten In?

Before starting the hard work of a job search, try to make a considered choice about what kind of school you want to work in. The first question you’ll want to think over is “do I want to teach in a public, private or charter school.”

Public schools, which are supported by taxpayer dollars, tend to be the gold standard in terms of offering good salaries and job benefits, although there is tremendous variation from state to state. Virtually all kindergarten teaching jobs will give you the summer months off, But in a public school system, that time off will likely be paid. Chances for advancement, health benefits and strong retirement packages are still widely offered to public school teachers. The downside is that even local public schools are pretty big institutions where class size is large, job politics can result in unpleasant work relationships, educational styles such as Common Core can be forced on teachers one year an then disappear the next, and parents who pay school taxes can be demanding of both teachers and administrators.

Private schools, which are supported purely by tuition, are often the most open to hiring freshly minted teachers right out of college. In most cases they pay significantly less than public schools. But in many cases they offer more freedom to teachers, smaller classes and a less political work environment. Private schools in upscale areas in particular may place less pressure on teachers to rush young children along academically, and have classes with fewer disciplinary problems than public schools. It can be a great place to “cut your teeth” as a teacher. Many young teachers work in a private school for several years before moving on to a teaching position in a public school kindergarten.

Charter schools, which are independent schools supported by public funds in most cases, have grown considerably in the past 10 years. Most of them choose students either by lottery or admission requirements, and many are designed to achieve higher learning goals and a better rate of college admissions at the end of high school than other schools. But charter schools have come under considerable criticism for pushing kids too hard and taking a factory approach to education. Pay scales for teachers in them vary widely, with some actually paying more than public schools. But many charter schools expect teachers to work more days each year to earn their base salaries.

Where to look for a kindergarten teaching job

There’s no hard and fast rule as to where you should seek employment as a teacher. It’s good to keep in mind though, that demographics in each area will affect the number of students coming in each year and, naturally, the number of teaching jobs that will be offered. Rural districts across the U.S. are generally facing a decline in student populations as more young parents migrate to cities. That affects how many teaching jobs exist in a typical rural area school today. Many suburban districts near the major cities have more stable or even growing student populations, but you’re likely to find that the more upscale schools with few discipline problems and more engaged parents have a lot more people applying for teaching jobs.

Kindergarten teacher hiring process

Once you have identified a school you would like to work, you can generally expect to go through a process of three interviews. The first, which may involve you filling out a written application, will be a relatively brief talk that may take place at a job fair. If that goes well, the next interview will be with a more formalized and lengthy talk with the school’s human resources representative. The final step is generally either a one-on-one meeting with a school principle or with a group of teachers and administrators on the school’s hiring committee.

Tip: When you start your search for a kindergarten teacher job, get as many interviews as possible. Even if you spend time talking with schools you’re not excited about working in, getting a lot of live interviews under your belt will quickly increase your comfort level with answering even the toughest interview questions.

So how long exactly does it take to become a kindergarten teacher? If you are starting from the very beginning of your college education, you can realistically hope to be working in a school within 5 – 6 years.

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It’s definitely smart to ask if online degrees are any good before you sign up for a program and invest your time and money in going to college. In fact, the truth is that it’s smart to question the real value of any degree, online or on campus before committing to a big new step in your education. Click To List Of Well-Known Online Colleges & Universities

Why Online Degrees Keep Growing in Popularity

All online programs tend to offer key benefits:

• Affordability: Studying online can save you a good deal of money because they eliminate the need for you to pay for a dormitory room on campus. That’s big, because room and board can account for as much as half the cost of attending a traditional university.
• Career-Focused: Online degree programs tend to be aimed very much at career development. If you look at the degree programs offered online by older ground-based schools like the University of Southern New Hampshire or by schools without campuses like Northcentral University, they all tend to focus on teaching you skills to get you hired. Although some people do get online degrees in English or Art History, the vast majority of online programs are in Business, Psychology, Nursing, Technology or other career-oriented specialties. That’s one of the big reasons that online degree programs have continued to get more and more popular over recent decades.

According to a report from the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics, the number of students taking online courses is rising in spite of the fact that overall college enrollments are going down to due demographic changes. According to the study, over 2.9 million college students are now enrolled in exclusively online programs and another 3.3 million students are doing at least some online study toward their degree.

That should put your mind at least a bit at ease when you go into a job interview. If you’re unsure that your online degree is credible and respected, keep in mind that there’s a strong chance that the person interviewing you has taken at least some online courses themselves toward a degree or certification, and that they don’t consider it unusual at all. A study by Western Governors University professor Calvin D. Fogle concluded that “Respondents’ (hiring managers interviewed in the study) attitudes towards online education are significantly more positive if the respondent has had experience with online education.”

On top of that, you should be aware that many companies today are actually insisting that their employees take online training of some type as part of their job function. Everything from a tech platform update to some type of corporate sensitivity training may involve employees being informed that they have to attend an online seminar or complete a test on the Internet to prove that they’ve learned a new skill.

Online Credential Standard In Some Careers

It’s also true that in some specialties – nursing is probably the strongest example – online bachelor degrees are actually becoming more the norm than the exception. Another example of a field where an online degree can be the best for getting a job is technology. If you choose to study anything from coding to web development through an online-only school, there’s a good likelihood that tech companies will think it’s totally normal that you attended college online. As a June 2019 article in Investopedia states: “If you’re in an Internet/new media field, studies show that 70% of online degrees are seen as legitimate.”

If you fear that your online degree has an automatic stigma attached to it, or that the people you encounter in the job market will doubt that it’s valid, make sure you choose a college with some key criteria in mind:

Top Issue Determining if An Online Degree Is Credible

A key question any company will want to know about before hiring you is whether or not your degree came from an accredited college. You want to make sure your school is recognized by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) or the United States Department of Education. The accreditation that most companies will be aware of is that of CHEA, which gives regional accreditation. There are several national accreditation agencies with varying levels of respectability as well as professional groups like CCNE and ACEN, which give accreditation to nursing school programs. It’s worth taking the time to find out which accreditations other than the regional type may or may not be looked on favorably in your job category.

School Reputation Versus Your Particular Degree

For most job interviewers, figuring out whether your online degree is credible starts with looking at the particular degree you have. According to a study by Silva, Lourtie and Aires, higher learning “should not be judged based on where it was received but the skills received.” That’s why it’s critical – before you start your studies – to identify a degree that will make it possible to get the kind of job that will pay a salary that justifies several years of college study. Many prospective students have trouble looking at this issue clearly when they’re shopping for colleges. And while there’s nothing wrong with getting an online degree in social studies or philosophy, you need to go in with your eyes wide open about the fact that those degrees probably won’t put you in the kind of earning position you’ll get from a business degree.

Thinking very specifically can help you get that first job after college. If you’re looking at online business degrees, find out if your school offers a business degree with a sub specialty in supply chain logistics, technology leadership, data analytics or another valued competency. Try to learn about what companies exist in the area where you want to live and what kind of specific expertise they hire for. The more you look before leaping into a degree program, the more chance it’s going to produce real value for you over the long run.

Is an Online Degree From a Local School a Good Idea?

Getting your online degree from a school with a campus in your region can be beneficial in some cases. The University of Massachusetts, for example, has a vast number of online students spread out over the world. But if you live in Massachusetts, you may get an added benefit from the fact that the hiring manager who interviews you will have a basic comfort level with the school simply because he or she has heard about it for years. It’s also true that local alumni networks can be very powerful. If you interview with a company near your college – even if you took an online degree there – there’s always a chance that other alumni of your school work at the company and like to help out new graduates. (Keep in mind, by the way, that many of the schools people normally associate with pure online education like University of Phoenix and Walden University do actually operate campuses in addition to their distance learning programs.) In fact, it doesn’t hurt to do a little research before your interview to find out if anyone in the company did attend your school.

Name recognition for a school can also work at a national level, where older, traditional American colleges can sometimes have a leg up in terms of reputation over newer for-profit or 100% distance learning schools. Hiring managers across the country are likely to have some familiarity, for example, with an old name like Purdue, which now operates all of Kaplan’s former programs. They may be aware of a Catholic school like Benedictine, which has a big online offering and has been around since 1887, even if they’re not located anywhere near it.

If Your Online School is 400 Miles Away

Some education websites say that an hiring interviewer will probably figure out that you got your degree online if your school is a long way from where you live. While that’s possible, it doesn’t really jibe with the reality of most higher education today. Students routinely travel to colleges and universities far from their homes, and it’s not at all a sure thing that having a distant school on your resume will tip anyone off that you were an online student.

Handling Tough Questions About Your Online Degree

To begin with, you are generally under no obligation to reveal on a job application or a cover letter that you got your degree online. But if it comes up, it’s important to realize that you can make a big difference in an interviewer’s perception of your degree if you learn to talk about your school, your motivation and your career goals in a way that makes you look like a smart candidate.There are some typical objections you should be ready to “bat back” in order to get a job with your online degree. Studies have shown that some hiring managers think online degrees don’t give students the best problem-solving skills and don’t develop social skills because students never actually sit in a room with their teachers or with each other.

Develop a “pitch” to tell them why you believed that an online degree was an excellent choice and the unique skills it’s given you. Some key points can help you make the case that your online degree was worth it:

Are Online Degrees Too Easy?

This is a question someone may not ask directly, even though he or she may have it in the back of their mind. But you should be well qualified to deal with this issue. After all, you learned in classrooms during high school and may have taken some classroom-based college courses before starting your online program. You can compare your own experiences of online and traditional learning and let the company know that you feel your online degree program was rigorous and taught you what you need to succeed in the job world. Showing a positive attitude about your degree can have a real impact on the attitude of the person interviewing you.

1. Your Technology Advantage as an Online Degree Grad: Many companies struggle to find job candidates who are comfortable using a variety of computer and online applications. Emphasize that your online degree program has made you comfortable not only with the internet, but with using digital forums, online video and complex learning applications. That can help telegraph that you’ll be able to quickly pick up programs like Salesforce, Google Docs, Powerpoint or other applications that track everything from company website traffic to product delivery and customer satisfaction. Make the point that getting a college degree online has made you tech-savvy.
2. Collaboration Platforms: Project management has become a big part of many jobs as companies in all businesses scramble to compete with each other to have the best websites, deal with customer complaints and deliver quality products online. Collaborative work platforms like Basecamp, WorkZone, Trello and others are used on a regular basis to help the various departments of a company stay organized in the development or improvement of company digital products. The familiarity you gain digital collaboration through an online degree program in working with other students and with professors should be portrayed as making you more comfortable than many other job candidates with participating in group projects online.
3. Learning Discipline and Time Management in An Online Program: According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only about sixty percent of American college students who start a bachelor’s degree finish it – and that’s within six years, at residential or online schools. If you were able to complete a degree online, it shows you have a good deal of self-discipline and time management skill. After all, when you take a degree program online, there’s nobody standing over you to make sure you pay attention or get to your classes. And if you’re an adult with a job and children, as many online learners are, your degree can offer strong proof that you know how to manage your work and life commitments effectively. A potential boss may like to hear, for example, that you’re used to handling work issues that come up outside normal business hours when the need arises.

Picking the Online Degree a Hiring Company Will Respect

Hopefully you have obtained a degree that’s targeted at the career path you’re interviewing for. That will be an advantage whether you got a campus or online degree. Managers with jobs to offer frequently have to interview job candidates that didn’t think very clearly about what they wanted to do in life before they started school. As a result, they have a tough time connecting the dots between a candidate’s educational background and the job they’re hiring for. If you come in as a graduate who has carefully planned your career direction and obtained a degree that prepares you for it very specifically, you can come out looking smart with an online or a traditional degree in hand.

Self-Motivation: In order to pass your school tests without face-to-face training by a professor, it’s necessary to be good at studying and preparing all on your own. Being self-motivated like that – rather than being someone who simply takes orders effectively, is something that many companies place a value on. With employees working virtually from home or traveling constantly, the company can have a real need to hire people who can motivate themselves to get the job done all on their own. You can help make the point about your personal drive with a quote by online degree graduate Maureen Johnson in U.S. News “I had to be self-sufficient…There was no hand-holding.”

Career Re-Start: If you’re an adult learner, there’s a good chance that you went and got your online degree to make a career change or move your current career to a new level. Many managers will recognize that this is a far more valid reason to get a degree than many young students have. who simply go to college because their families can pay for it and it’s the typical thing to do at their age. Millennials who have come out of traditional colleges in recent years have a very mixed reputation among major corporations. Many companies consider them, frankly, a bit spoiled. You should feel confident the point that you went after your online degree with a very specific career goal in mind and now you’re ready to work towards that goal.

Key Points on the Quality of Online Degrees

In 2010 The U.S. Department of Education released a study of online learning. Among it’s most interesting conclusions are that courses that are taught either partly or completely online result in better student learning that those delivered strictly through traditional in-classroom teaching with a live professor. Amazingly, this study also concluded that among face-to-face learning, blending online and classroom study and pure online learning, face to face learning appears to be the least effective.

To make your case that your online degree was worth it, be aware of these key factors: