Oklahoma School Librarian Certification Guide - 2024

Initial Librarian Certification Process

A school library certification (aka: library media specialist) allows librarians to work in educational environments for PK-12 schools. All applicants must also initially hold a valid Oklahoma teaching license.

Education Requirements

School librarians are required to have a master’s degree. If the masters degree is not in library media education or library and information science, then the certification candidate is required to complete 24 semester hours of coursework in the field of library media.

Additionally, applicants will need to acquire a recommendation from the director of teacher education at your graduate degree program institution. This will need to be added to your application for certification. More instructions are shown below.

Experience Requirements

Experience is a reasonable prerequisite for professionals who are working with complex technology, school-aged children, and with library staff, since school librarians will be responsible for selecting the best resources for customers. All candidates for an Oklahoma teaching certificate must have completed at least 360 hours or 12 weeks of student teaching. This experience should include serving in classrooms and working directly with students under the guidance of a mentor.

To add a Library Media Specialist certificate, no additional experience is required.

Testing Requirements

There are three tests that an aspiring Oklahoma teacher is required to pass. They are as follows:

• The Oklahoma General Education Test (OGET)
• The Oklahoma Subject Area Test (OSAT) – depends on the type of teacher certification
• The Oklahoma Professional Teaching Examination (OPTE)

Hundreds of tests are included in the Certification Examinations for Oklahoma Educators (CEOE) to assist prospective and existing educators in obtaining the certification required to teach in Oklahoma public schools. There are more than 50 Oklahoma Subject Area Tests are among these examinations (OSAT).

When enrolling for a CEOE exam, candidates must pay one or more fees. Here is a breakdown of how much each kind of exam will cost students each test or subtest.

For OGET, you are expected to pay around $80 for the CEOE Test Fee, $25 per test if you are testing via a computer, and an extra $30 Annual Processing Fee.

For school librarian certification, you will need to complete the Library-Media Specialist (038) examination with a passing score of 240. The exam appointment time  is 4 hours and 15 minutes long and the testing fee is $80. For more information about the examination and to register, go to the Certification Examinations for Oklahoma Educators website.

For information about the certification tests required for teacher certification in Oklahoma contact the Teacher Certification Division of the Oklahoma State Department of Education at 405-521-3337 OR visit this link for further details: https://sde.ok.gov/teacher-certification 

Background Check

To keep the workplace safe, a background check is required. It guarantees that your colleagues do not pose a risk to others. School library administrators can be certain that onboarding colleagues are not criminals who pose a threat to school library attendees, especially when you’re dealing with an environment with a lot of children attending to.

To learn more about the background check process and to register to have your fingerprints taken, please go to the following Oklahoma State Department of Education webpage.

Applying for Certification

Upon completion of all school librarian (library media specialist) certification, you will need to follow the instructions and add all required materials with your Application for Adding Areas to Existing Certificate. Complete your application online on the Oklahoma Education Single Sign-On website or download the application, here. 

The application processing fee is $25.

Mail application packet and materials to: