Firefighter career change, need help navigating

[SquirrelOnfire55]

Hi! I am a firefighter turned stay at home mom a few years ago and I am looking for the fastest path to a Bachelor's degree so I can qualify as a substitute teacher in my town. There is a severe shortage of teachers and especially substitutes so I want to help. I have searched through the forums and looked at most of the schools suggested, but I still feel lost. I found a youtube video about degree hacking, and challenging classes and whatnot but I assume they'll want a fortune to tell me information I can find elsewhere. I could use some help figuring out if my associates degree will transfer to any pathway that I can complete quickly. I was thinking maybe a liberal arts degree would be easier than fire management, but I don't know if my degree can transfer to anything non-fire related. Many of you seem to have a plethora of information so I am hoping someone can help point me in the right direction.
Your Location: California, USA
Your Age: 39
What kind of degree do you want?: A Bachelors degree, in any major if I can do it quickly. I have an AS in fire technology and one class away from an AS in fire science (which I’m taking right now), but I left the fire department to raise our kids so I’m not committed to an EMS pathway anymore.
Bottom line up front: I’m looking for the fastest Bachelors I can get, in any major, so I can become a substitute teacher because we have a terrible shortage in my area, and they desperately need help. I have a lot of experience teaching and coaching, so it is within my skill set and I’d enjoy doing it. If its possible to turn my 115+ California community college credits and fire department and non-profit work experience into a quick path to a BS/BA then that would be my goal, with an emphasis on speed over all other factors.

If there isn’t a different major that will be faster, then my goal would be sticking to the fire administration/organizational leadership/public administration type pathway and cost and ease of schedule would probably be more important than speed. (although I have raging ADHD and lose interest quickly so the faster the better lol)
The ability to transfer to a masters, or possibly pursue a teaching credential later would be a factor worth considering, but not a deal breaker.

Current Regional Accredited Credits:
Posted as a comment due to word limit is my course list from a California Community College, totaling about 119 units/credits and at least one associates degree and 2 certificates. The classes at the end were offered by my department, through the college, for units/credits but with credit/no credit grading only. I have another 2 dozen classes that I didn’t get college credits for but are all certified by California State Fire Training, NIMS, NIFC, FEMA, or another agency. I also have another 8 credits (give or take) for a pre-paramedic course that I took at another school but I don't have access to the transcripts from there to verify right now. 

Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits: none. But I have many NIFC, FEMA, and NIMS classes if they count.

Any certifications or military experience?: Fire Technology Certificate, Emergency Medical Provider certificate, NREMT-B license, California State Fire Marshal FF1 cert, CSFM Driver Operator cert. 

Budget: I don’t really have one, speed and ease is my priority. I’ll pay more if I can do something easy and fast, but under $10k would be cool and wouldn’t want to spend more than, say, $50k?

Commitments: 4 kids + husband and puppy. (so, 6 kids?) I work from home about 20-30 hours a week plus some volunteer commitments, but my time is flexible and I can adjust.

Dedicated time to study: I can devote on average 4-6 hours a day on weekdays, and 8-12 hours on most weekends for at least a few months. If I’m looking at a longer program, I’d have to scale those back a bit (especially during baseball season)

Timeline: ASAP. For the “fastest path to a BA/BS so I can be a substitute teacher” route I’m really looking for something I could complete in months, or less than a year at most. If that isn’t going to be possible, then my path would be some kind of leadership or public administration major and my timeline would be about 2 years max.
Tuition assistance/reimbursement: None.

Thank you in advance for any help!

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Here is my course list:

Psychology of Adjustment                  3.00 A
Soccer I                                           0.50 A
Creative Writing                                3.00 B
Reading and Composition: Beg.           3.00 B
Descriptive Astronomy                       3.00 C
Native People of North America           3.00 A
U.S. - 1877 to Present                       3.00 B
Intro to Human Communication           3.00 B
World Religions/Spirituality                 3.00 B
Statistics                                          4.00 B
Elementary Piano                              1.50 D
Medical Terminology                          3.00 B
Conceptual Physical Science                3.00 C
General Psychology                            3.00 B
Soccer I                                            0.50 A
Soccer II                                           0.50 C
Firefighter I Academy                         15.00 A
Confined Space                                 0.50 A
Intro to Fire Tech                              3.00 A
Fire Prevention Technology                 3.00 A
Bldg Construction                              3.00 A
EMT Training                                     7.00 A
Medical Spanish                                 3.00 A
Driver/Operator Training 1A                1.00 A
Driver Operator Training 1B                1.00 A
Fire Behavior and Combustion             3.00 B
Fire Protection Equipment Systems      In progress 3.00
Elevator Rescue                                 0.50 Credit
Hazardous Materials Full FRO              1.00 Credit
ICS 200                                            1.00 Credit
Rapid Intervention Crew Tactic            1.00 Credit
Management I                                   2.00 Credit
S-290 Intermed. Wildland Fire            1.50 credit
Command 1A                                    2.00 Credit
S-212 Wildland Power Saws                0.50 credit
Hazardous Materials                          1.00 Credit
Low Angle Rope Rescue                     2.00 Credit
Work Experience in Fire Tech              8.00 Credit
First Responder and CPR                    3.00 Credit
Work Experience in Ems                     4.00 credit
CAL FIRE Firefighter I Returnee          1.00 Credit
CAL FIRE FireFighter 1 Training           4.00 Credit
Firefighter  Training                           2.00 credit
Firefighter Training                            2.00 credit
                                 Total:119.00

[Charles Fout]

THANK YOU! for being a Firefighter and EMT. So very important.

Nothing more important than being Mom.

Please keep your priorities in balance. I think you will find many opportunities.

Have you had conversations with the faculties, staff, and current substitutes at the schools and school districts in which you aspire to substitute? In my immediate area Liberty University is very popular.

Wishing you the very best.

[Vle045]

I think a Liberal Arts degree would be your fastest. In general, it allows the most elective credits, so courses with no place to go should fit there. You seem to have math, science, history, and a few others covered. You can easily grab a few business-related courses on Sophia.org. Look up the course list for the liberal arts degree at UMPI. That should give you a good starting point. I am sure someone with UMPI experience will come along and give you a little more guidance,

[Stonybeach]

I don't have any experience with UMPI, but Excelsior University's BS in Liberal Arts was excellent. Unfortunately, I'm sure things have changed since I attended. After briefly looking at your coursework, you will need approximately 30 upper-level credits (300 or higher) for most of these nontraditional bachelor's degrees, even though you appear to have 120 credits.
https://www.excelsior.edu/program/bachel...ts-degree/

SUU Speedway. https://www.suu.edu/speedway/
$75 a credit.

Western Governors University has an online program that leads to a teacher license. https://www.wgu.edu/online-teaching-degr...grees.html

[davewill]

UMPI is certainly an option for you. They only accept 90 transfer credits total, however, you could apply immediately, take 30 credits from them and be done. It's probably the cheapest (and maybe the fastest) path to a bachelors.

TESU would be another option. Since all your credits are from a community college, you can only use 90 of those credits, you will also have to get 30 more credits. However, since TESU will let you transfer in up to 114 credits, you could get up to 24 of those credits from ACE providers like Sophia and Study.com. The last 6 credits are the cornerstone and capstone courses which must be taken from TESU. You can save about a $1000 by taking 15 credits (including the corner/capstone) from TESU in a single fixed price term, leaving 15 to get from ACE providers.

TESU just costs $50 to apply to, so you could apply now, and send in your transcripts, then in about a month, see exactly how your credits would apply to their degree requirements.

Since you have stats already, I suspect you could get a business degree (from either school) about as easily as a liberal studies degree, but there are people here who can help you draw up the degree plans that would nail that down for sure.

[zonny61]

I totally get why you want to become a substitute teacher - it's amazing that you want to help with the shortage in your area! With your AS in fire technology and experience in teaching and coaching, you've got a great foundation to build on.

[bjcheung77]

@SquirrelOnfire55, Welcome to the board, in addition to the advice provided earlier. You may as well apply to TESU, UMPI, and see where you stand with all the credit transfers. TESU BALS and UMPI BLS options are going to be very appealing as you can transfer up to 90 credits for UMPI and finish the rest of the residency credits in a session or two. For TESU, you can decide to pay the residency waiver fee or take the 15 credits for residency purposes... Cost, Ease, Speed is pretty much the same with UMPI being a tad better in all three categories...

[zonny61]

Hi! Thus, if you have your credits and experience, Liberal Arts or Business degree might be fast and convenient. Maybe programs online with WGU or SNHU could be effective. Check into credit transfer possibilities and CLEP tests in an effort to make it go more quickly. Wishing you the best in your endeavor to achieve your goal of a substitute teacher.

[eriehiker]

I like what you are planning to do. I just started my 28th year of teaching at a public high school in Wisconsin. It's a great job. There are lots of people who like the flexibility of substitute teaching and being part of the school community.

I would at least give a few minutes of thought to what happens if you really, really like teaching and want to turn it into a full-time gig at some point.

Here is a link with some info. about California intern teacher programs:

https://www.ctc.ca.gov/credentials/roadm...ng-program