Teaching Reduces Service Requirement for Douglas Scholars

If you received a scholarship under the Paul Douglas Teacher Scholarship Program (formerly the Congressional Teacher Scholarship Program), you are generally required to teach for two years for every year of scholarship assistance received. However, if you are teaching in a federally approved teacher shortage area, you are required to teach only one year for each year of scholarship assistance received.

No new funding for individual scholarships has been authorized since the beginning of the 1996-97 year. However, former scholarship recipients who have not fulfilled the scholarship agreement must continue to do so.

A federally approved teacher shortage area is a state region with a shortage of elementary or secondary school teachers, or a grade level, subject-matter, or discipline classification in which there is a statewide shortage of elementary or secondary school teachers. These areas must be identified by the state education agency and approved by the U.S. Department of Education.

List of federally designated teacher shortage areas (Word or PDF)

To fulfill the teaching service requirements under this program, you must give the office that administers the program (in the state that granted the scholarship) a written statement from the school's principal, certifying that you are teaching full time in a teacher shortage area. If you are teaching in a state other than the one that granted you the scholarship, you should obtain this certification from either (1) the school principal if the state education agency has informed the appropriate principals in the state that their schools have been designated as having a shortage of teachers, or (2) directly from the state education agency if it has not informed the appropriate principals of the designation.

If you teach in a shortage area one year, but it is not designated as such the next year, you will still be eligible for the teaching reduction if you provide the state office with the appropriate forms certifying that you are continuing to teach in the area for which the original teacher cancellation was received. Under certain circumstances, you may receive credit for substitute teaching service performed in accordance with the state policy in effect at the time. If a scholar fails to fulfill the teaching obligation, he or she will be required to repay, on a pro rata basis, the amount of the scholarships received as well as accrued interest and any required collection costs.

For more information about teaching service requirements under the Paul Douglas Teacher Scholarship Program, you should contact the office that administers the program in the state from which you received the scholarship. (Note that the state office that administers the Paul Douglas Teacher Scholarship Program may be separate from the state education agency.)