Adding a CTE Certification Vocational Code (V-Code)

V-Codes are tied to the Career and Technical Education (CTE) certification and dictate the CTE Courses that a teacher is certified to teach. The teacher’s education or industry experience is reviewed by OSPI to determine the V-Codes for certification.  

To add a V-Code, download, print, and mail the completed Form 4075A-1: Application for Washington State Career and Technical Education Endorsement (Specialty Area) application to the OSPI Professional Certification Office with the $52.00 fee for processing.

Adding a V-Code to the Initial/Continuing CTE Certificate

CTE Plan 1: University Route is for adding Agriculture Education, Business and Marketing Education, Family and Consumer Sciences Education or Technology Education and must meet the following requirements: 

CTE Plan 1: University Route V-Code Requirements

 

• Must complete any state's approved CTE program in one of the four broad endorsement areas: Agriculture Education, Business and Marketing Education, **Family and Consumer Sciences Education, or Technology Education  
  • View CTE University Route Programs in Washington 
  • **Family and Consumer Science Ed Note: Teaching experience may be used for the 2,000 hours of experience. 
• Must complete an approved content knowledge test (WEST-E or other approved test) in the specific subject area candidate recommended.  
• View Teacher Testing Information  
• One year of occupational industry experience (2,000 hours) in the subject area other than teaching in the past ten years. If all or part of the 2,000 hours are more than ten years old, candidates must complete an additional 300 hours of recent (occurring in the last two years) occupational experience, which can be volunteer hours in the CTE subject area.  
  • Volunteer hours can only be used for the 300 hours of recent industry experience.  

CTE Plan 2: Business & Industry route is for adding specialty area(s) to an existing CTE Initial/Continuing certificate using experience only. This does not include Agriculture Ed, Business and Marketing Ed, Family and Consumer Science Ed and Technology Ed; see CTE Plan 1 for those V-Codes. To add a V-Code using experience only, educators will need to meet the following requirements: 

CTE Plan 2: Business & Industry Route V-Code Requirements

• Three years (6,000 hours) of occupational experience must be verified in the past ten years in each V-Code requested. 
• One year of occupational industry experience (2,000 hours) in the subject area besides teaching must be verified. If all or part of the 2,000 hours are more than ten years old, candidates must complete an additional 300 hours of recent (occurring in the last two years) occupational experience, which can be volunteer hours in the CTE subject area.  
  • Volunteer hours can only be used for the 300 hours of recent industry experience. The applicant may use up to 4,000 hours of teaching experience in the CTE subject area and 2,000 hours of occupational experience (non-teaching) in the past ten years.  
• Biomedical Science (V260102) and Health Science Biotechnology (V261202) Hours Note: Must meet all requirements above and may use all 6,000 hours of teaching experience in biology. Please submit form 4075H.
• STEM (V141000) Hours Note: Must meet all requirements above and may use all 6,000 hours of teaching experience in science, technology, engineering, and math. Please submit form 4075H.