Milestone 1: Admission to Candidacy

After you complete your educator preparation program, you will complete a licensure application on the Illinois State Board of Education website.

In this application, you will be asked the five following questions:

1. Have you ever had a license denied, suspended, or revoked in Illinois or any other state?
2. Have you ever been convicted of a felony or any sex, narcotics, or drug offense in Illinois or any other state?
3. Have you ever failed to file a tax return with the Illinois Department of Revenue, or failed to pay any tax, penalty, or interest owed as any final assessment of same for any tax as required by law administered by that Department that was not subsequently resolved to the Department’s satisfaction?
4. Have you ever been named by a state agency responsible for child welfare as a perpetrator in an indicated report of child abuse or neglect if such report was not reversed after exhaustion of any appeal?
5. Are you delinquent 30 days or more on child support?

These questions are asked on every ISBE application: provisional license, professional educator license, renewal, registration, etc. Please answer these questions truthfully. If you are not honest when answering these questions, your license could be revoked. If you must answer yes to one or more questions, your application will go into a pending review status. Then, ISBE will send you a deficiency letter indicating what documents need to be submitted. For most questions, three professional character references that know about the situation are required.

The application and supplemental documentation shall be reviewed by a committee made up of staff from ISBE’s licensure division. The committee may contact the applicant if additional information is needed. Upon conclusion of the committee’s review, the committee shall notify the applicant of the agency’s decision to deny or its intent to deny an application, by certified mail, return receipt requested mailed to the address shown on the application.

At this time, you do not need to complete any applications on the ISBE website.

For more information about this process, please contact Sierra Ryan at sryan27@uic.edu.

Students must complete the candidacy application online using the link below. In order to access and complete the candidacy application, individuals must be enrolled and active UIC students. As part of the candidacy application, students will be asked to provide their Illinois Educator Identification Number (IEIN). Student must create an Educator License Information System (ELIS) account to receive an IEIN. Instructions from ISBE on how to create an ELIS account are available at: https://www.isbe.net/Documents/How-To-Create-ELIS-Acct.pdf.

Complete the candidacy application

AND

Create an Educator License Information System (ELIS) Account

Illinois law requires all state universities to include safety education for teachers and other education professionals. Students can fulfill this requirement by completing the Teacher Safety Module. All questions must be answered correctly in order to progress to the next page of the module.

As part of Milestone 1 requirements, students must successfully complete Teacher Safety Module. The CTE will automatically receive confirmation of students’ completion of the Teacher Safety Education Module.

Complete the Teacher Safety Module here.

All school personnel (including teacher candidates) are considered mandated reporters. Students completing field experience or student teaching are mandated reporters of child abuse and neglect. Additional information on Mandated Reporting in relation to Educator Preparation and School Personnel program students can be found here.

As part of Milestone 1 requirements, students must successfully complete Mandated Reporter Training. After completing the Mandated Reporter Training, students will be presented a Certification of Completion. Upload your certificate to the Jotform Application in Step 3.

Complete the Mandated Reporter Training here

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, commonly known as FERPA, is a federal law governing the privacy of educational records. It grants specific rights to students and sets restrictions on how schools may handle educational records. FERPA requires that schools obtain written permission from students before releasing educational records.

As part of Milestone 1 requirements, students must successfully complete FERPA Training. After completing the FERPA Training, students will be presented a Certification of Completion. Upload your certificate to the Jotform Application in Step 3.

Complete the FERPA Training here

The Degree Audit Reporting System (DARS) is a computerized system at UIC used to evaluate a student’s progress toward graduation. The audit delineates every course taken and places each course into its appropriate category whether as a general education course, major course, or elective. Additionally, DARS shows hours earned, residency requirements, grade point averages, and other valuable information. The DARS Report is used by CTE for evaluating a student’s progress, fulfillment of requirements, and outstanding requirements. Students can obtain their DARS report by following the directions below. Upload your DARS report and/or Unofficial Transcript to the Jotform Application in Step 3.

How to access your DARS report:

• Go to myuic.apps.uillinois.edu and login
• Select the “Student” tab
• Select “uAchieve Degree Audit – DARSWeb” to receive a DARS report

Students must complete the CPS Field Experience Approval process and submit a copy of the approval email with their Candidacy application via the Jotform Application in Step 3.

Please note that the approval process can take 2 to 4 weeks to complete, including the receipt of the approval email from CPS.

To learn more about completing the CPS field experience approval process, please visit: https://cte.uic.edu/field-experience/cps-field-experience-process/.

Undergraduate Secondary & Foreign Language students are required to submit 1 Letter of Recommendation Form with their Candidacy application. Students must submit one Academic Letter or one Supervisory Letter. The Academic Letter must come from a professor or instructor of a college-level course. The Supervisory Letter must come from an employer or supervisor of volunteer activities.

CTE encourages students to complete the student section of the Letter of Recommendation Form, and then forward the form to the recommender. Then, the recommender can email the student’s completed Letter of Recommendation Form to CTE at uic_cte@uic.edu.

The Letter of Recommendation Form can be found here.

Undergraduate Secondary & Foreign Language students must submit a Writing Sample with their Candidacy application. Students must upload the writing sample as a Word document or PDF version to the Jotform Application in Step 3.

To learn more about writing sample requirements, click here.