Official Seal of the California Department of Education

Application

Visiting Teacher Program Local Educational Agency

Professional Learning Support Division

Please watch the California Visiting Teachers Program Spain and Mexico Procedures for Sponsoring Visiting Teachers for J-1 Visas Webinar prior to completing this application.

Please refer to the Visiting Teacher Program web page for the most up-to-date guidance and more information on this program.

Program Overview

In 1986, the U.S. Department of State designated the California Department of Education (CDE) as an Exchange Visitor Program sponsor to bring credentialed teachers from overseas on J-1 visas to teach in California bilingual classrooms. The CDE continues to support this program by providing staff to coordinate the program, working closely with the U.S. Department of State, U.S. embassies, and the education agencies of participating nations. The CDE staff coordinates the Teacher Exchange Program through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with each country.

Eligibility

Visiting teachers from Spain and Mexico come to California to teach in elementary and secondary programs, migrant education settings, and alternative bilingual programs as defined in California Education Code sections 300–340. School districts may also hire visiting teachers to teach English Language Development, bilingual mathematics, and Spanish as a foreign language. Under the Exchange Visitor Program (EVP) regulations, which are located in Code of Federal Regulations Title 22 (22 CFR) Section 62, visiting teachers may hold a teaching contract for one to five years.

The CDE does not consider kindergarten through grade twelve institutions offering predominantly vocational or technical programs academic for purposes of exchange teachers’ placements. Exchange teachers may also teach at the pre-kindergarten level, but only in language immersion programs at accredited schools for at least 50 percent of the school day where regular courses of study are in a language not native to the majority of the student population (22 CFR Section 62.24[c][6]).

A full-time teaching position requires a minimum of 32 hours per week of teaching or teaching-related administrative activities (22 CFR Section 62.24[c][2]) such as lesson planning, curriculum development, grading, and field trip planning for students. A full-time exchange teacher must be a teacher of record, not a teacher's assistant/aide, substitute teacher, or someone holding a non-instructional position.