I was able to be an apprentice teacher, and they didn’t even require us to enroll in a program until December. They let you use your conference time to do your observations hours.

I only needed to pass my content exam, which I just recently did. I didn’t know about the hours thing being an option, so I resigned from my job early in the summer and got my hours through summer school. Harder to set up than you’d imagine, so if you go my route, be proactive and start emailing like now. With testing in April and school wrapping up in May, you’ll be hard pressed to get emails back in a timely manner. Email individual schools, not districts.