So after having moved from FL nearly 3 years ago I'm finally going through the whole process of getting my license here in WV. I went to school in FL for 300 hours, the law only requires 250 so why in God's name I had to do 300 I don't know. WV requires 400 hrs, and doesn't allow any reciprocity for Nail Technicians, which means I cant just go up and say "hey I have my FL license give me a WV one in exchange." I need 150 more hrs of schooling or I have to show proof that I worked for at least 6 months(25hrs is credited for each month your work in a salon/spa). Also in FL they don't require NT's to take an exam, my school gave a written one but to be licensed by the board there isn't an exam in anyway shape or form. WV has a good 4-5 hr exam, two written parts and a practical exam where I have to do a manicure, tips, sculpted nails, and a nail wrap.
Now if I hadn't piddled around for so long about getting my license here I probably wouldn't care that much, but basically when I moved from FL I was in no mood to do nails, or really anything for that matter. Now that I've waited over 2 years I'm a little out of practice. Monday I called one of the schools near me and they said it was me 5$ an hour I'd need to go 25hrs a week so I'd be done in 4 weeks(this was before I spoke to the WV Board and they said it didn't matter that I logged 300 hrs at school) and I would need to pay for registration and a new kit. Now at the school in FL my kit was only worth maybe $150-200. So I'm thinking along the lines of $800 for this measly 100 hrs I need. I get the brochure the school sent me, and I nearly died. So $500 for the hours I need, $100 for registration (WTF!?) and SIX-HUNDRED for the kit. No...just no. That took my total up to $1200 for 100 hrs, 300 hours at the school in FL only cost $2500!!
So this morning when I wasn't very busy at work I called the board to see if they still offered the 25hrs per month working(I think that's rather ignorant considering that's less than an hour a day but whatever). Find out that FL is 250, so I'd need another 50 hrs on top of everything else so my grand total(before extra fees and exams fees) is $1450. I actually cried after I got off the phone because it felt like everything was just discouraging me from doing nails here in WV.
After I calmed down a bit I decided I should really try and contact the owner/manager of the spa I worked at after I graduated. I worked from May 07 to Nov 07 so there's my 6 months of work experience I need. I didn't know if her numbers still belonged to her, or even if she still had the spa. Luckily I'm OCD about phone numbers and keep them forever just in case. I tried the spa's number and she answered on the third ring. I think she was in shock I called her because I haven't spoken to her since I went by to pick my things up the day before I moved. I told her about me trying to get my license finally moved to WV and how things just weren't going well and that my last option was to mail her a form and have her say I did work there from May-Nov 2007 and have it notarized. She said if I mailed her the stuff she would do it for me. It was like the heavens opened up and there was music and singing.
After speaking to her I got on the WV Boards website to print out the forms I needed and managed to find stuff about the exam. After reading through it I started getting all nervous again. I won't have all of my forms and paperwork in time to take the August exam which is fine because I need to practice a lot before then. The main thing I'm worried about is the whole WV laws and the written tests because while I learned stuff in FL it was the FL laws that I learned, I have no idea how different the laws may be, and I really don't want to have to pay to learn that stuff at the school here because that's a bit ridiculous for how much I'd need to pay. So my plan is to try to speak to some different NT's in the area to get some information about the test. I actually made an appointment to get a manicure near where my normal job is so maybe I can speak to them about the exam and the laws. If all else fails I can try to get into a couple classes at the academy. Which on a side note all the beauty schools in this area close at like 5-6pm. Which is very inconvenient for me, if I had gone through with taking the hours at the school I'd have lost hours at work and would have had to use vacation for some of the days to make the 25hrs a week they wanted. Apparently the schools are only for those who don't have jobs or have someone to support them through school. In FL I worked until 3:15pm Mon-Fri and then went to school from 4-9pm. I was done in less than 5 months.
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