thank you for your advice. I did take the CNA class and it's a long complicated story. I took the class in 2003. I had been working at Stonybrook University hospital here in NY for about 2 years when I took the CNA program that they provide. They've been doing it for years, it's legit. However, when my class began, the nursing home that we were supposed to do our 5 day clinical at had a citation and we weren't allowed to do it there. According to my professor, who I spoke with the other day, they came up with some way of getting us "nationally certified", meaning we wouldn't be state certified.
Apparently, they allowed us to do our 5 day clinical in the hospital instead of the nursing home, which I did. We had graduation, I got my certificate etc. I've been working in the OR since then as a CNA. Like I said, i'm looking into moving to california and decided to look into transferring only to find out that NY state has no record of me being a CNA. I never received any paperwork, email, etc. about renewing my certification either.
I called my old professor this past week who still teaches the class and asked her to explain this entire scenario to me. Again, she told me about the citation at the nursing home etc. She told me that I should get in touch with the National Nursing Assistants registry to find out what being nationally certified means, meanwhile she was the professor and she doesn't even know it exists.
I already spoke with someone earlier today who emailed. She also said there's no such thing as "national certification". I had a copy of my certification sent to me in the mail from my old professor. Honestly, there's no way I would retake the class. The woman I spoke with earlier today told me to gather all the info, officially, and try to waiver the test and file a grievance.