State Authorization Update - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

State Authorization Update

October 28, 2016

Office of Academic Programs

State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA) Participation

July 1, 2016 - Sout

h Carolina became 41st SARA state

USC

Columbia

became SARA

institutional

member August 17, 2016

Today, 42 states & the District of Columbia are in SARA

Who’s left?

Kentucky

and

Pennsylvania

have applied for SARA – in by early 2017

Main holdouts in New England -

New York

&

New Jersey

first have to join their regional compact , then apply for SARA;

Connecticut

just got state approval to apply for SARA;

Massachusetts

is making progress.

California

also at the legislative stage, but is encountering some political opposition.

Florida

may be last to join, due to portal agency dispute

What

does participation

in SARA mean?

SARA

states

share standards for

the interstate offering of EL and DL.

We

can offer DL courses to students in all other SARA states if we are not requiring students to gather physically.

We can advertise to students through print, billboard, direct mail, internet,

radio,

TV.

We can have faculty, tutors, and recruiters residing in other SARA states.

We can hold proctored exams in other SARA states.

We can

operate limited supervised field experiences

in other SARA states.

For more information: See main

SARA website

www.nc-sara.org

.

What

are our

responsibilities as a

SARA institutional participant?

1. Adhere to shared SARA principles and regulations

2.

Report

annually to

NC-SARA

on

numbers

of

Distributed Learning

(

DL) and Experiential Learning (EL)

students

in

each SARA

state

3.

Comply with licensing and certification rules existing outside of SARA purview in SARA states

4. Continue to follow state authorization rules in non-SARA states

How do we comply with licensing and certification rules?

You need

to

know

whether your program will make a student eligible to sit for a professional licensure exam

in the state where they are doing their EL

You need to

send each out-of-state EL student

in writing

one of three letters

– stating that either you

Know that your program makes them eligible to sit for licensure exam in state where they’re doing EL; OR you

Know that your program does NOT make them eligible to sit for licensure exam in state where they are doing EL; OR you

Know that there is insufficient information to judge whether your program makes them eligible to sit for licensure exam in state where they’re doing EL

Programs are responsible, but Academic Programs can help

Responsibility for licensing compliance will be on the programs

themselves, as their faculty and staff are the experts.

You may already know the

licensing requirements in multiple states

.

Here’s how we can help:

Unofficial state regulatory information on relevant programs has been compiled in

a

Dropbox folder

for

Professional

Licensure

Contains

information on 49

states’ licensing bodies, links, state

regulations

Also

has template letters for notifying students of licensure,

&

additional

info

on SARA.

USC Columbia Colleges

will be contacted by my office when students in DL or EL coursework may require licensure notification

.

Dropbox

Professional

Licensure folder URL:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gf22k0ife9tkr3e/AADxbufRpjoLvu7-OuaUleS_a?dl=0

Important new restrictions!

SARA allows

LIMITED supervised field experiences

– limited because:

You may have

NO MORE THAN 10 students doing EL at the same site

, in any SARA state.

Different

departments

at the same hospital can count as different

sites

.

2. SARA

may require

annual renewal of the contract you have with

clinical

sites

.

We have

heard

this

from

other SARA

participants,

but

have not

been

able

to verify

it

yet.

Rules are evolving, as SARA grows

Federal Dept of Education is adding regulations to:

strengthen student complaints policy/proceduresclarify definitions of EL terminology (“supervised field experience”)

c

ircumscribe how we describe our SARA status (“cannot claim we are approved by authorization entities of other SARA states….can only state that we are operating in a host state under terms & provisions of SARA”)

NC-SARA is compiling a SARA Manual that includes these stricter regulations.

Questions about SARA or SARA Requirements?

Kristia H.

Finnigan

Meghan B. Fields

(803

) 777-3245 (803) 777-0300

finnigan@mailbox.sc.edu

fieldsmb@mailbox.sc.edu

Assistant Provost for Academic

Programs Program Coordinator

Office of the

Provost Academic Programs Office

Office of the Provost