Have a Good Life

Brian Devine is the Director of Educator Licensure at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. He has been with the Department since 1997 and has been leading the Licensure Office since 2004. In 2014 and 2015, he was recognized as part of teams that received the Manuel Carballo Governor’s Award for Excellence in Public Service for his teamwork on implementing Rethinking Equity and Teaching for English Language Learners (RETELL) and his leadership in directing the Licensure Office our of a tremendous backlog of applications. Most recently, he was awarded two Pride in Performance Awards in 2020 for his work on the creation of a new emergency license and for how the Licensure Office responded during the pandemic. Brian is currently serving on the NASDTEC Executive Board as the Northeast Regional Director and previously served on the Board from 2008–2014, including President in 2012–13. After graduating from Salem State University, he obtained licensure as a history and social studies teacher and later earned a master’s degree in Public Administration from Framingham State University.

• What the director of licensure does!
• 400 school districts and 80,000 educators who need to be licensed.
• Changes over the last several years
• Smartphones, internet use, social media
• Increase in volume of cases over the years.
• Clearinghouse with NASDTEC to go out through other states.
• Challenge of different restrictions on educators and infringing on their ability to be human beings or parents, themselves.
• The burden of checking is on the local district.
• Department could have subpoena power.
• How states get information on actions taken in other states.
• Good moral educator clause
• What should districts do to reduce tech-related educator misconduct?
• Do more to support prevention
• What should teachers individually do to reduce tech-related educator misconduct?
• Pay attention to what they’re doing, and look at what the impression may be that they are sending.
• NEA has built microcredentials
• Watch for grooming behaviors.
• NASDTEC Courses

Check out this episode!