Different Perspectives on Continuing Education
Whether or not you enjoy continuing education – and some people actually do enjoy it – funeral director CE will be around for the foreseeable future. As things stand it is necessary for license renewal in most states, and more states are adding such requirements all the time. While laws and regulations may change, no state has opted out of such requirements once they were established.
Of course each state’s requirements vary significantly, based on such factors as number of hours, method of instruction, frequency, and in some cases the topics themselves. This article provides a small sampling of the kinds of differences that exist.
Every two years, most funeral directors in Texas need 16 hours of funeral director CE to renew a license. Two hours are required in each of three mandatory topics: Ethics, Texas Law, and Texas Vital Statistics. The remaining 10 hours can be on any topic, as long as the course is approved by the Texas Funeral Service Commission. All continuing education may be completed through distance learning.
Like most states, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and New York allow the same approved courses to be repeated for each renewal period. The guiding principle is that licensees should have the option of refreshing their memory on the topics they choose. On the other hand, Arkansas and Louisiana only permit course repetition every second or third renewal period. As we understand it, the reasoning is licensees are forced to expose themselves to new information.
While some people feel that 16 hours for Texas are too many, consider the following: Every year Louisiana requires four hours; Oklahoma requires six hours; and New Mexico requires 10 hours each year. If we look beyond our neighboring borders: Illinois now ties Iowa and Arizona as states requiring the most funeral director CE or embalmer CE, which amounts to a total of 24 hours every two years. It seems that Texas and Florida are near the middle in terms of funeral director CE.
Though this article presents just a few examples, you can see how different states address funeral director CE requirements in their own way, and there are guiding principles that come with each approach. What do you think? I look forward to your comments and suggestions about this article or continuing education in general. Please E-mail me at: info@apexces.com
Remo Portelli is the Chief Educational Officer of APEX Continuing Education Solutions. As the Endorsed Provider for CE, a percentage of each sale supports the Texas Funeral Directors Association. To access the APEX website, go to: WWW.TFDA.COM, click on Education and then click the link to APEX, which is in the second paragraph. We also specialize in embalming courses too.
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If you are needing courses in Funeral Director education Apex Continuing Education Service is the school for you! All their courses are online or by mail. If you are needing funeral CE courses and funeral CE credits, contact them today at Apexces.com!