Last month, the Indiana State Board of Education approved changes concerning teacher certification that lower the qualifications for becoming a teacher. By passing an exam, anyone with a four-year college degree and a 3.0 GPA is now allowed to teach.

According to Williams, because of the lowered qualifications, more teacher evaluations will take place, but he said they do not always result in instant changes.

“If there’s a concern that’s noticed in an evaluation, it doesn’t instantly correct itself,” Williams said. “We would never hire someone thinking that, well, if this doesn’t work out, we can always do evaluations and take care of it.”

Senior Haley Geiss, who said she plans to become a teacher, said she believes these changes in evaluations will result in more challenges for teachers.

Geiss said, “I think (evaluations) will challenge them because with lowered qualifications, they’re going to want to have better teachers.”

According to Williams, the changes to teacher qualifications were put in place to make the teacher applicant pool larger.

“There are some parts of our state where they’re really looking for high-quality teachers, especially in the areas of math and science,” he said.

The new requirements will provide more people with the opportunity to become teachers, according to Geiss.

“Many people can become teachers now, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing because there’s always a need for teachers,” she said.

Nathan Price, a new French teacher, said he sees advantages to this policy.

“Since I teach French, if I could take and pass the Spanish test, the languages are so similar (that) I don’t necessarily see a problem with that,” Price said.

Although Price said he is not certain, he does not think these changes will impact CHS much.

“Carmel’s really good about having teachers specialize in what they’re doing, so I’m not sure in the immediate future if it is going to have a large effect,” he said.

While Williams said the administration may consider more teachers due to these changes, they will still only accept those whom they deem appropriate for the job.

“I hope that we still get a chance to interview and hire some of the best teachers out there,” Williams said. “We may have more opportunities to look at other people, but again, we’re going to look hard at folks who have been traditionally trained. We just feel like that’s important.”