Start with this
Everything the test maker publishes about this exam is free. The assessment framework, sample selected-response
items with NYSED's own rationales, all six performance tasks, the scoring rubrics and official model responses are
all on the NYSTCE site at no cost. Before you buy a commercial guide, work through the free official material
— on this exam it is the only material that is definitionally correct.
Official NYSTCE · Fields 109 & 110Primary — use these firstthe whole official set
- Preparation materials hub, 109/110The single page that links everything below. If you bookmark one URL, bookmark this one.
- Assessment framework (PDF)The only document that specifies what the exam measures: all five competencies, every performance indicator, the item counts, the percentage weightings and the minutes per task. Everything on this site is keyed to it. If a study resource disagrees with this PDF, the study resource is wrong.
- Field 109 test page · Field 110 test pageFees, current testing-window dates, score report dates, and the test-specific policy links. The window calendar is republished each year — check it before you plan anything.
- Field 109 — introduction · directionsHow the part is laid out and the exact directions you will see on screen. Reading the directions in advance buys you minutes on test day.
- Field 109 — sample selected-response itemsOfficial items across two scenario sets, with full data exhibits and NYSED's own rationales for every option. These rationales are the closest thing that exists to the exam explaining itself. Reproduced and annotated in this site's Practice module.
- Field 109 — performance tasks, rubrics and model responsesAll three Part One constructed responses with full directions, the multi-document exhibit set, the scoring rubrics, official sample responses at multiple score points, and the commentary explaining why each earned its score. The commentary is the most under-read document in SBL prep.
- Field 110 — introduction · directionsSame for Part Two — and Part Two's layout is the less familiar one, since 75% of it is writing.
- Field 110 — sample selected-response itemsOfficial Part Two items with rationales. Note how heavily they lean on operations, data and law.
- Field 110 — video observation and analysis taskThe 70-minute task that is 30% of Part Two on its own: the teacher observation rubric, the four components you must rate, and what a scoring response looks like. If you only open one Part Two document, open this.
- Field 110 — Human Capital task set · Family & Community taskThe remaining two Part Two performance tasks with documents, rubrics and sample responses.
- Competency correlation tableMaps 109/110 competencies to the leadership standards. Useful if your preparation program teaches to the standards rather than to the exam.
- Understanding your score report (PDF) · SBL score report explainer (PDF)What the scaled score and the per-competency performance indexes on your report actually mean — worth reading before you sit, so a retake decision is not made in the dark.
- Policies · Retake policy · Scores and reporting datesThe 30-day retake wait, score release timing, ID requirements, and the withdrawal and refund rules.
New York reference materialWhere Competency 0003 actually comes fromthe law and policy layer
- Professional Standards for Educational Leaders — NYS Version (PDF)Naming note: a lot of SBL material refers to the “2015 New York State Educational Leadership Policy Standards.” NYSED does not publish anything under that title today. New York's adaptation is Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (NYS Version), adopted 2017 — ten standards. The NPBEA PSEL 2015 original is also hosted on nysed.gov. Beginning in 2025–26, principal practice rubrics in NY evaluation plans must address each NYS-version standard.
- Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework (PDF)Maps directly onto Competency 0002. The four principles, in NYSED's own words: Welcoming and Affirming Environment · High Expectations and Rigorous Instruction · Inclusive Curriculum and Assessment · Ongoing Professional Learning. There is also a crosswalk to the PSELs with observable indicators — an unusually good study document.
- 8 NYCRR §200.4 — referral, evaluation, IEP and placementThe special education timelines, in the regulation's own words: respond to a referral request within 10 school days; initial evaluation within 60 days of consent; programs arranged within 60 school days of consent to evaluate. Selected-response items live in exactly these numbers.
- Dignity for All Students Act (guide, PDF)Signed 2010, effective July 1, 2012, amended effective July 1, 2013. Reporting duties, the Dignity Act Coordinator, and what counts as material incident reporting.
- NYS-STEPS (Education Law §3012-e) · §3012-d APPR guidanceBoth systems legally coexist. LEAs may transition to NYS-STEPS voluntarily from 2024–25 and must adopt by June 30, 2032; until then an LEA continues under its approved §3012-d plan. Candidates routinely get this wrong in both directions. Do not use nysed.gov/appr — that page has not been updated since 2018.
- McKinney-Vento in New York · NYS-TEACHSStudents in temporary housing: immediate enrollment, enrollment while documents are gathered, school-of-origin choice, transportation, comparable services. NYS-TEACHS runs the state helpline under contract to NYSED.
- NYS P-12 Learning Standards by content areaThe Next Generation standards. Note that New York began phasing out Common Core ELA in 2022 — any study material still saying “Common Core” is dated.
- NYSED State Aid Office · State Aid to Schools: A Primer (PDF) · Education FinanceThe three revenue sources, the formulas, the budget calendar. The Primer is the single best plain-English explainer of NY school funding.
- OSC — the claims auditing process · auditing roles and responsibilitiesInternal controls, segregation of duties, and who does what: claims auditor, internal auditor, external auditor, audit committee. This is where the operational-integrity items come from, and the OSC guides are clearer than any test-prep summary.
- NYC Chancellor's Regulations (NYC candidates)Volumes A (students), B (school-based budgeting), C (employees), D (parent and community). Two worth knowing: A-443 student discipline — note the posted revision date is still March 5, 2004, so pair it with the current NYC Discipline Code — and A-420 corporal punishment, reissued June 20, 2025. The regulations are NYC-specific: they will not appear on the exam by name, but they are the concrete version of the policy reasoning the exam does test.
Third-party material — how to judge itRead this before you trust a file4 categories
- Legacy Fields 107/108 materialThe 2013 assessment was retired as of Sept 2, 2025 — but its test pages, framework and sample items are still live on the NYSTCE site and are easy to download by mistake. The underlying leadership content still transfers, and the 108 material contains a full copy of the teacher observation rubric, so it is worth extra scenario reps. The formats, weightings, timings and terminology are not. Tell-tale markers of 107/108-era material: “Common Core” rather than the Next Generation standards, “professional development” rather than “professional learning,” “limited English proficient” rather than “English language learners,” and a Competency 0002 title that stops before “and Social Justice.”
- Out-of-state leadership exam guidesArizona, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, California's CPACE, Florida's FELE — all built on ISLLC/PSEL, so the leadership reasoning overlaps substantially and they are fine for extra scenario reps. But none of them carry New York law, New York timelines, NYSED terminology or the 109/110 format, which is where a meaningful share of your score lives. Filler, not core.
- EAS (Educating All Students, Field 201)A different NYSTCE assessment entirely. Barron's EAS guides and EAS study notes turn up in SBL folders constantly. They are not preparation for 109/110. Check your own certification requirements in TEACH rather than assuming which tests you need.
- Commercial guides and “question banks”Two tests: does it name the current fields (109/110, not 107/108), and does it reproduce NYSED's own rationales or substitute its own? Practitioner rationales can be excellent, but where one contradicts an official rationale, the official one wins. And nothing legitimate reconstructs a live form — anyone selling you that is selling you a problem.
Errors in widely circulated study files
These files pass hand to hand through SBL cohorts. All of these defects are real, and all are corrected on the relevant page of this site.
| Where it appears | The error | What is actually true |
|---|---|---|
| School law case summaries | Vernonia described as limiting drug testing to student athletes | Board of Education v. Earls (2002) extended suspicionless drug testing to all competitive extracurricular participants. |
| School law case summaries | Honig v. Doe stated as a flat bar on removing students with disabilities | Stay-put applies, but IDEA permits a 45-school-day interim alternative educational setting for weapons, drugs or serious bodily injury, following a manifestation determination. |
| School law case summaries | The Lemon test presented as current establishment-clause doctrine | Largely abandoned in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022) in favor of a history-and-tradition analysis. |
| Title IX material | The 2024 Title IX rule described as in force | The 2024 rule was vacated January 9, 2025. OCR enforces the 2020 Rule. |
| Certification notes | “Pay to extend three years, then retake the tests” | Replaced August 2, 2023: up to two reissuances of five years each. |
| NYSED Test 110 performance task file | Assignment 3 labelled Competency 0001 | It is Competency 0002 (Family and Community Engagement). A labelling slip in the source document. |
| A commonly shared 66-item practice bank | Four defects in the answer key | One key contradicts its own explanation, one item number is duplicated, one is omitted, and one option is worded backwards. Each is flagged inline in this site's Practice module. |
What your study material has to cover
Use this to audit whatever collection you have assembled. The right-hand column is where this site covers it.
| Competency | Weight | What you need in hand | On this site |
|---|---|---|---|
| 109 · 0001 Instructional Leadership | 25 items + 30% | Official 109 sample items and rationales · the extended task with rubric and model responses · a working vocabulary of named instructional strategies | Task Playbook, Practice |
| 109 · 0002 School Culture & Learning Environment | 16 items + 30% | The two shorter tasks with rubrics · DASA · the CR-S Framework's four principles · equity and school-climate language | Cheatsheet, Law & Ops |
| 110 · 0001 Developing Human Capital | 0 items + 55% | The teacher observation rubric in full · the video task and its four components · the Human Capital task set · practice video footage to rehearse on | Task Playbook, Day-Of |
| 110 · 0002 Family & Community Engagement | 10 items + 20% | The official Part Two partnership scenario · the 40-minute task with rubric · community-partnership and two-way-communication frameworks | Practice, Task Playbook |
| 110 · 0003 Operational, Data & Legal | 16 items — the biggest SR block | IDEA and CSE timelines · §3020-a and §3214 · FERPA · Title I · McKinney-Vento · DASA · school finance, internal controls and the claims auditor role | Law & Ops — the deepest page here |
If you audit only one thing
Check whether your material covers Developing Human Capital as writing and Operational/Data/Legal as
recall. Most collections are strong on instructional leadership — the familiar part — and thin on
exactly the two blocks that decide Part Two.
A source is missing, or wrong
Links rot, NYSED migrates URLs, fees change and windows move. Everything on this page was fetched and confirmed in August 2026; NYSED is mid-migration on several paths, so some of these will drift.
If you find a dead link, a better official source, or a factual error anywhere on this
site, please send it back — it helps the next person sitting this exam.
File a correction on GitHub