The course material must address the knowledge and skills necessary to perform the tasks associated with the water and wastewater treatment training course. A copy of the Manual for Approving Continuing Education Courses for Operator Licensing is located on our website and available to print. It is important and required that all FDEP requirements are met in your application for course approval. Training must not promote or endorse the products, product lines, or services of any manufacturer, distributor, or service provider who offers a product or service related to any water and wastewater treatment facility regulated by the FDEP. No infomercial type training course will be acceptable.
The training course developer needs to assure that the course is:
- Relevant to the water or wastewater treatment field – since office or business skills (including typing, speed reading, etc.), use of calculators or computers, motivation, and sales promotion type courses will not be approved. Reference 4.3 Disapproved Content of the FDEP manual
- Course curriculum is categorized under one of the FDEP requirements; reference 4.2 Approved Content of the FDEP manual.
- Course contact time has been met – one hour means one hour. The course developer is required to demonstrate in the application form that the course contact time have been calculated using the ABC Guidelines for Distance Education, IACET, SACS, certified beta testing, or timetable of training conference to justify the ceu credit hours.
- Instructors must exhibit expertise in the given field of instruction. According to the FDEP manual, a minimum of 3 years of working experience in water or wastewater treatment, certificate or degree from an accredited school, or documented research and study in the given field.
- Course Developer must demonstrate availability to students for questions and comments pertaining to the course curriculum, should the course be of the self-study type.
- Training Sponsor must certify to Training Provider attendance and course completion of the student, along with evaluation form submission.
- Training events, manuals, or self-study courses must be approved by the Training Provider, prior to advertising or conducting the training event.
Editing of course material and technical content must be completed by the training course developer before submittal to FUSE for approval. If the training course or program utilizes a manual or other documentation that has not been previously approved by FUSE, the course developer must provide expertise to perform editing of the proposed training course or manual. The course instructor or expert who performs the editing task must furnish evidence of their credentials and must sign off on the completed training course or manual.
Course materials submitted to FUSE are assumed to be original documents by the course developer. Any manual or supplemental reference material utilized in the training course shall be included in the application for review by FUSE, prior to use in the proposed training course. The course developer is responsible for obtaining proper approval from the publisher of any manual or supplemental material, should copyright laws apply. The use of existing approved manual or supplemental material in training courses is acceptable. A complete copy of the self-study course must be presented to FUSE with the application and relevant to the water or wastewater treatment field.
FUSE has the right to rescind any approval of any course which does not conform to the FDEP requirements, training does not conform with the approved material, subject matter does not comply with the approved course, instructor does not comply with the experience requirements, instructor is promoting or endorsing service, products, or product lines of any manufacturer, representative, distributor, service organization involved in any water or wastewater treatment facility regulated by FDEP, or falsified contact time, individuals, or course attendance of a previously approved course.
All approved course sponsors shall submit at end of training day or no later than the next morning a completed roster of all course completions, including, but limited to, Operators Name (Last, First), License Number, License Type, approved FUSE course number, completion date, and amount of CEU’s approved. The training sponsor is responsible for issuing each student a certificate of completion with the above information, and must retain course completion data for a period of four years.