Is ATC approval the same as state teacher certification?
The Advanced Technical Credit Program is not connected with state teaching certification. A teacher can be ATC approved without being certified by SBEC (Secondary Board for Educator Certification), and a teacher who is certified by SBEC may not be ATC approvable. Since the purpose of ATC courses is to give students credit at community colleges for technical courses taken in high school, the teachers of these courses are expected to have the same educational and employment background as their community college counterparts. Because of this, the requirements for approval in the ATC Program are usually stricter than those for state teacher certification.