WAC 246-830-475 Continuing Education Requirements states:

1) To renew a license, a massage therapist must complete twenty-four hours of continuing education every two years, as provided in chapter 246-12 WAC, Part 7. Continuing education must be provided by an individual who has at least three years of professional experience in the subject area being taught. Massage therapists have a duty to ensure the continuing education they complete meets the requirements in this section.

There are many changes to the massage CE WAC.  We've blogged about CPR and changes to CE certificate requirements.  However, there are two important changes that are more subtle, I've highlighted them in the above WAC language.

The yellow section indicates that the instructor has to have "...at least three years of professional experience in the subject area being taught".  Prior to the WAC update on 9/1/21, anyone could have taught anything with or without the experience to do so.  Now, there is an experience requirement that CE teachers need to meet.  This means that if you travel to another state, take a class from an out-of-state instructor or take a class from a local instructor you need to make sure that they have the experience to be eligible to give CE credit for you to take their class to have it count in Washington State for license renewal.  The three year's experience requirement does not mean that a CE instructor has to have taught the subject matter for three years, but that they must have learned the material and be experienced in it for three years worth of time.  If someone only has one or two years experience in a subject, it does not mean that you can't take their class to learn the material, it just means that you can't use the class to count as part of your CE hours to renew your Washington State massage license.

The blue section indicates that it is every LMT's responsibility to make sure that the CE they take meets the state CE requirements.  This means knowing if your instructor has appropriate experience (check their website or contact them if you can't exactly determine if they do or not), that you've met the correct CE categories and hours and that the certificates that you receive have all of the information required on them to be acceptable.