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Are you a Georgia Master Cosmetologist who needs continuing
education hours to renew your license?
If so,
here are a few tips on selecting the right class
February 9, 2012
There has been
a lot of confusion out there about what Georgia Master
Cosmetologists need to do for their continuing education
before each license renewal. We have compiled a few tips to
help you navigate the continuing education waters and avoid
common pitfalls that we have seen.
Tip 1.
First, find out if you need to take CE
Almost all
Georgia Master Cosmetologists will have to complete 5 hours
of continuing education before they renew their license
every two years. However, there are a few exceptions, and
you do not have to take CE before your renewal if you fall
in to one of these three categories:
(1)
It is your first license renewal (i.e. you became licensed
for the first time during the current renewal period and it
will be the first time you have ever had to renew your
license)
(2) You
have been licensed for 25 years or longer
(3) You can demonstrate a significant hardship (check with the Georgia
State Board of Cosmetology for details if you have a
hardship case to make)
Tip
2. Select an approved CE provider!!!
This is the
most important tip. If your class provider is not approved
by the Georgia State Cosmetology Board, then the class will
not count towards your continuing education hours needed to
renew your license. So you are probably wondering, who is
approved to provide cosmetology continuing education for
Georgia? There are two equally valid groups.
The first
group are those companies who are registered by the Georgia
State Cosmetology Board. They earn this registration by
submitting information about their classes to the state, and
if the state deems their classes acceptable, they are
approved and issued a registration number. These companies
should include their registration number on their web site
and in their promotional materials so be sure and find this
before you sign up for one of their cosmetology continuing
education classes. HairDirections’ Georgia continuing
education provider registration number is 2012-0004. Some
companies also include a link to their approval letter from
Georgia right on their web site, such as
we did here on our state CE approvals page.
If you are ever in doubt, call the company or email them to
double check that their classes have indeed been approved.
The second
group of people who are approved to offer these CE classes
are schools under the jurisdiction of the Board of Regents
of the University System of Georgia, the Department of
Technical and Adult Education (DTAE), the Department of
Education, or any accredited postsecondary institution.
These groups may not have gone through the approval process
listed above, but their classes may still count towards your
Georgia cosmetology license renewal. Since these groups do
not have a registration number that you can check, we
recommend that you contact the college and the Georgia State
Cosmetology Board to verify that a particular class will
fulfill your CE requirements (also see Tip 3 below about
selecting the right classes).
A word of caution here: just because a provider is approved by the Georgia State
Cosmetology Board, it does not mean that ALL of their
classes will be accepted for the 5 continuing education
hours that you need. You have to select a class that is
approved for Georgia Master Cosmetologists which also
includes the elements listed under Tip 3 below. As an
example, you can see that
all of
our classes on this
page
list Georgia Master Cosmetologists, along with
several packages that fulfill all 5 of your CE hours.
Tip 3.
Select the right CE classes
The 5 hours of
cosmetology continuing education has to include a 3 hour
health and safety class and a 2 hour elective. The health
and safety class has to follow a very specific curriculum
established by the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult
Education (commonly referred to as DTAE), but it does not
have to be taught by DTAE. The Georgia state board of
cosmetology gives quite a bit of latitude when it comes to
the 2 hour elective, and lots of different classes can
qualify for this as long as they are an approved class
offered by an approved provider (as previously explained in
Tip 2).
To give you an
idea of some of the 2 hour electives that are out there,
here are three of them being offered by HairDirections, all
of which are approved by the Georgia cosmetology board:
Continuing education elective #1: Fashion Forecasting
Continuing education elective #2: Color Geek
Continuing
education elective #3: Success
While all
three of the CE clases listed above are very different from one
another, they are all acceptable for meeting the 2 hour CE
elective requirement imposed by the Georgia Board.
Tip 4. You
can complete your 5 CE hours online
Yes, this is
true, Georgia allows online cosmetology CE classes for
Master Cosmetologists. This can be a really convenient way
to complete your CE, and it usually costs less than
attending a live class. Technology has progressed to the
stage where content rich online CE classes are now available
which include videos, graphics, and other really fun
elements that can almost make it feel like a live class.
Some of these online classes also let you finish over
multiple sittings so you do not have to complete it all at
once. We love that part, as a lot of us in the industry are
busy and the flexibility this creates is nice.
HairDirections offers
these
new online cosmetology CE classes
on this page
Continuing
education providers are not allowed to include a test with
their online CE course for GA Master Cosmetologists. If any
Georgia CE provider says their class includes an exam
BEWARE! They either do not know what they are doing, or
worse, they are not registered. If you have friends who are
licensed in other states, they may have to take an exam for
their CE class, but that is not the case for Georgia.
Tip 5. Get
your moneys worth
If you are
shelling out your hard earned money, you might as well get
something for it rather than just a piece of paper to show
the cosmetology board. Pick a class that will allow you to
raise your career to new heights by learning a new skill,
inspiring you, or simply refreshing things you may have
forgotten since you went to school. The least expensive
class may not be the best use of your time and money. The
price of HairDirections’ continuing education classes are
very competitive and we have also worked extremely hard to
create practical classes that will help you excel in your
everyday work as a cosmetology professional.
Tip 6.
Complete your CE early
The deadline
for completing your continuing education and renewing your
license is March 31 of every even numbered year, and you can
expect a reminder form the Georgia State Board of
Cosmetology approximately 6 weeks before this deadline. We
recommend that you complete your GA cosmetology CE early,
and do not wait until the last minute. This will allow you
to find a class that is a good match for you and finish it
before your Master Cosmetologist license renewal deadline.
Whew! That was
a lot of information! We hope this news article helps you
select the right class and cleared up any confusion you may
have had. You can browse a
list of
approved CE classes here. If you still have
questions give
HairDirections a call at
(608) 235-2622 or
contact us via email and we would
be happy to help. You can also visit the
Georgia State Board of
Cosmetology’s web site.
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