Education Equivalencies Policy
The purpose of this policy is to assist in maintaining consistency in education equivalencies across the District, including consistency for on-going job standardization and compensation planning. Education equivalencies are provided to maintain consistency in how applicants are screened for a position to determine if a candidate meets the minimum requirements.
All District job descriptions shall include education and experience minimum requirements and may include the equivalency statement as follows “Equivalent combinations of relevant education and experience may be substituted as outlined in the Education Equivalencies Policy.”
Experience cannot be substituted in professional positions which require a specific degree, i.e. Juris Doctorate.
Human Resources may post positions with the equivalency or remove the equivalency if the justification is consistent with business necessity and job-relevancy as determined by the Director of Human Resources or their designee. Positions allowing equivalencies will follow the Degree Equivalents below.
Standard equivalencies are recognized as follows by the District:
High School Diploma or equivalent (as recognized by the State of Ohio)
- General Educational Development (GED®) test
- High School Equivalency Test (HiSET)
- Test Assessing Secondary Completion (TASC)
The following Degree Equivalents is referenced when establishing work experience for degrees in job descriptions.
Experience must be related to the job qualifications.
The job description will contain only the required qualifications. Preferred qualifications will not contain equivalencies.
Degree Equivalents
- 30 hours of college credit = 2 years of work experience*
- 60 hours of college credit = Associate Degree = 4 years of work experience*
- 90 hours of college credit = 6 years of work experience*
- 120 hours of college credit = Bachelor = 8 years of work experience*
- Master = 12 years of work experience*
- Ph.D./Doctorate = 16 years of work experience*
* Unpaid internships and other volunteer work experience, if full-time, may count as full-time experience depending on the nature of the internship/work compared with the required experience for the position. This applies to part-time unpaid internships and other volunteer work experience and will count as part-time experience.
Statement on job descriptions where the Education Equivalencies Policy is applicable will be: “Equivalent combination of relevant education and experience may be substituted as outlined in the Education Equivalencies Policy.”
Implementation Date: March 3, 2020