Kentucky does not renew teaching certificates on PD hours. Which of your five-year renewals you are on decides what you owe, everything is due by September 1 - and separate annual hour requirements do exist for instructional leaders and OCTE staff.
Kentucky does not renew teaching certificates on professional development hours. If you came here looking for a renewal hours number, there isn't one. Certificate renewal runs on graduate credit, a completed fifth-year program, years of teaching experience, or the Continuing Education Option. Annual PD hours do exist in Kentucky - just attached to particular roles rather than to renewing your certificate. If you are an instructional leader or you work for the Office of Career and Technical Education, read the role-specific requirements below as well.
And the requirement changes with each renewal. This is the part that catches people, because the answer someone gives you may be correct for their renewal and wrong for yours. 16 KAR 2:010 Section 3(5)(c) sets three different bars: your first five-year renewal takes 15 semester hours of graduate credit applicable to the fifth-year program; your second takes the fifth-year program itself; every renewal after that falls under 16 KAR 4:060, which is three years of successful teaching experience or at least six semester hours of credit.
One date governs all of it. Requirements must be completed by September 1 of the year the certificate expires. Miss it and there is exactly one extension available - a single year, granted only if you have already completed at least a third of the requirements and your employing superintendent requests it.
Fifteen semester hours applicable to the fifth-year approved program of preparation for a first renewal; at least six semester hours for renewals after the fifth-year program. Credit taken in lieu of teaching experience has to come from a nationally or regionally accredited postsecondary institution.
A full approved program of preparation under 16 KAR 8:020, and what the second five-year renewal requires outright.
Three years of successful teaching experience renews a certificate once you are past the fifth-year program. A full year means at least 140 teaching days within the academic year, on at least a half-time basis, verified by your superintendent.
A job-embedded alternative to coursework, available for the first and second renewals. Read the note below on what it is actually for.
Two annual hour requirements sit outside the renewal ladder entirely. Neither one renews a teaching certificate, and neither is waived by the other.
16 KAR 8:030 opens with a single sentence that most summaries skip: "The Continuing Education Option shall only be used to obtain either Rank II or Rank I." It is not a generic substitute for professional development.
The experience route has real definitions attached, and they are stricter than "I taught that year".
16 KAR 4:060 accepts service in the armed forces toward renewal in lieu of teaching experience, if you held a valid certificate before entering, and extends the certificate's validity for the period of service. Substitute teaching in a certified position also counts where it meets the regulation's day thresholds.
First renewal: 15 semester hours of graduate credit applicable to the fifth-year program, or the continuing education option for initial certificate renewal. Second: the fifth-year approved program itself, or successful completion of the continuing education option. Third and beyond: three years of successful teaching experience, or at least six semester hours of credit.
Coursework in place of experience has to come from a nationally or regionally accredited institution. Experience has to clear 140 teaching days a year at half-time or more, verified by your superintendent.
The regulation names this date for every stage of the ladder. It is not the application deadline in some other state's sense - it is when the requirements themselves have to be done.
A certificate may be extended once, for the year immediately following expiration, only if you apply, have completed at least one-third of the renewal requirements, and your employing superintendent requests it. The remainder is then due within that year.
None. Kentucky does not renew teaching certificates on professional development hours - renewal runs on graduate credit, completion of the fifth-year approved program, years of successful teaching experience, or the Continuing Education Option, and which applies depends on which five-year renewal you are on. Annual hour requirements do exist for particular roles: 21 hours a year for instructional leaders under KRS 156.101 and 704 KAR 3:325, and 25 hours a year for Office of Career and Technical Education personnel under 780 KAR 3:140. Neither renews a certificate.
Yes, separate from certificate renewal. 704 KAR 3:325 implements the Effective Instructional Leadership Act and refers to the twenty-one hours of training required under KRS 156.101. Each local district reports to the Kentucky Department of Education by August 30 each year the name of any instructional leader who fails to complete them, along with the hours actually completed, and keeps training certificates on file for three years.
16 KAR 2:010 Section 3(5)(c) requires a minimum of fifteen semester hours of graduate credit applicable to the fifth-year approved program of preparation, completed by September 1 of the year the certificate expires, or completion of the required components of the continuing education option for initial certificate renewal.
Those fall under 16 KAR 4:060: a certificate is renewed for subsequent five-year periods on proof of three years of successful teaching experience, or at least six semester hours of credit. The requirements have to be completed by September 1 of the year of expiration.
At least 140 teaching days of employment within the academic year, on at least a half-time basis, in a public school or a regionally or nationally accredited nonpublic school, verified by the employing superintendent or chief school officer. A half year is at least 70 teaching days within a semester. Home school teaching is not accepted.
A regular certificate may be extended one time, for the one-year period immediately following expiration, if you apply to the EPSB, have completed at least one-third of the renewal requirements, and the extension is requested by your employing school superintendent. The remainder of the requirements is then due within that year.
Yes. Kentucky's ladder is about records rather than hours, so the platform tracks which renewal you are on, holds the transcripts and the superintendent-verified experience behind it, and keeps that record next to coaching, evaluations and goals instead of in a separate file.
Not in Kentucky? Find requirements for your state.
Evaluated in Kentucky? See how Kentucky teacher evaluation works, and how the evidence connects to the record you keep for renewal.
Part of EX in Education
Semester Hour tracking is one part of how districts support educators. In EX in Education, it connects to the bigger picture: walkthroughs, coaching, evaluations, goals, PD, recognition, surveys, and retention. Bring your own process, or start from a template, then run it across every school so every educator moves from hired to thriving.