Buena Vista City Public Schools » Central Office » Human Resources » Office of Licensure
The Office of Licensure is committed to providing school division licensure contacts with updates as they become available.
SSWS Online Renewals
As a reminder, our data team has advised that the SSWS online renewal option will not be available until January 20, 2022. Please excuse our delay as the team completes necessary maintenance. Also, if your division utilizes this option and has questions related to the balance in the deferred payment account, please send an email to Edna.Iverson@doe.virginia.gov.
Updated Licensure Forms
Updated forms for 2022 are attached. Please note the applications for initial licensure and application for renewal have two technical edits. A third gender identifier has been added to align with the data collections of other state agencies during the application process. In addition, to identify and expedite processing, we have added an additional field for military spouses in response to upcoming legislation. We will continue to accept the January 2021 (and later versions) of the initial licensure applications, and the October 2020 (and later versions) of the licensure renewal applications.
Also, all updated forms can be found on SSWS. Navigate to the Instructional Personnel (IPAL) application, and in the right navigation panel click (+) Instructions. A list of updated forms will be available. We are also updating the website as quickly as possible.
Enhancements: Electronic Transcripts
As announced in August 2021, our office is accepting electronic transcripts from Parchment. We are now extending this service to National Student Clearinghouse as well. Applicants submitting licensure requests may request their college or university send their official transcripts via Parchment or National Student Clearinghouse directly to the Virginia Department of Education. This option will be noted in the instruction portion of the initial application and renewal application on our website. While this is a new option for applicants and license holders, the expectation is that individuals employed by school divisions or accredited nonpublic schools, should still work with their employer to have their licensure request submitted on their behalf.
If transcripts are submitted to our office via Parchment or National Student Clearinghouse, and an individual has not submitted an initial application, we will establish a file in our system. However, no action will be taken until a complete application is received. This process is similar to our process with electronic score reports imported from ETS and Pearson.
Many school divisions already utilize Parchment and National Student Clearinghouse and have been accepting official transcripts on behalf of their employees. School divisions may continue this practice by verifying on the Licensure Request Form that the transcripts included in the application packet were received electronically by school division staff directly from the institution/transcript issuer as an official transcript.
We are not authorized to redistribute transcripts that have been sent to this office directly via Parchment or National Student Clearinghouse. Therefore, continue to work directly with your employees to compile a complete application packet (to include official transcripts) so that this documentation is on file for employment purposes.
If you have questions, please reach out to your assigned VDOE licensure specialist directly.