The endorsement you gave your apprentice started a CE clock nobody is watching.
A plain apprentice registration carries no continuing education requirement. Put an endorsement on it so he can run billable work, and it does. That is the whole gap.
How the gap opens
The sequence is the same in every shop.
You have a registered apprentice who is good. You want him productive without a licensed plumber standing over him for every hour of the day, so you put him through an endorsement. Drain Cleaner, or Residential Utilities Installer. Now he can run the machine or set the utilities, and the endorsement pays for itself inside a month.
What came with it, and what nobody mentioned, is that TSBPE lists apprentice registration with endorsements among the credentials that must complete 6 hours of approved CPE before renewal. The same six hours your masters and journeymen take.
Why it gets missed
Three reasons, and none of them are anybody being careless.
- The apprentice does not know. He is early in his career. Nobody handed him a requirements sheet with the endorsement, and he is not reading board rules on his lunch break.
- The office is tracking licenses, not registrations. The renewal spreadsheet has the masters, journeymen and tradesmen on it. Apprentices sit in a different column, if they are on it at all.
- The endorsement felt like a credential, not an obligation. It was bought to unlock work. The annual string attached to it never came up.
What it actually costs you
Not much, if you catch it. A real amount, if you do not.
The cost of catching it is six hours and the price of a class, for somebody who is going to sit for a tradesman or journeyman license in a few years anyway. The material in the CE is material he sees again on that exam. It is the cheapest development money a shop spends.
The cost of missing it is a registration that lapses on somebody you were counting on for a schedule, and a conversation with the board that you did not need to have.
The five minute fix
Pull your roster. For every registered apprentice, ask one question: does he hold an endorsement? If the answer is yes, he owes six hours before his renewal, and somebody needs to own that.
Then decide who pays. Shops handle it both ways and there is no wrong answer. What is not optional is the hours getting done.
Check it against the board, not against us
An apprentice can see his own endorsements in his TSBPE account, and the board publishes which credentials carry the requirement. Both are linked below. If your apprentice holds no endorsement, he owes nothing, and we would rather tell you that than sell you a class you do not need.
Primary sources
Rules change and this page is dated. Confirm anything that affects your license against the board before you act on it.
Told straight, once
Status: the Texas Plumber CE provider and course applications are with the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners. Nothing is for sale until the board issues approval.
One email when a Texas plumbing rule actually moves. One when registration opens. Nothing else.