CQE Work Experience - New to Industry

Hello,
I tried getting a better answer straight from ASQ on this, but alas, their answer was extremely generic and not helpful, so any advice is appreciated.

I have worked in the education and retail industries for the last 13 years and am looking to make a career change. I am planning on taking the CQE Exam in December but am worried that my experience will not count towards the required 8 years.

I have the following experience and am wondering what you think, will this pass for the 8 year requirement. (all of the BOK experience would be in leadership and management)

Bachelor's Degree - 4 Years
I was a grade school and then high school teacher for 7 years.
I was a High School principal for 2 years from 2010-2012
I was a Starbucks Store Manager for 2 years from 2012-1014
I am currently a Customer Service Manager with a Big Box Retailer and have been for the last year.

Within each of those positions I managed large groups of both professional and hourly employees, while also leading many different projects and teams.

Thank you!!!

Here are the requirements (from the ASQ website)

Education and/or Experience

You must have eight years of on-the-job experience in one or more of the areas of the Certified Quality Engineer Body of Knowledge.

A minimum of three years of this experience must be in a decision-making position. ?Decision-making? is defined as the authority to define, execute, or control projects/processes and to be responsible for the outcome. This may or may not include management or supervisory positions.

Work experience must be in a full time, paid role. Paid intern, co-op or any other course work cannot be applied towards the work experience requirement.

If you were ever certified by ASQ as a Quality Auditor, Reliability Engineer, Software Quality Engineer or Quality Manager, experience used to qualify for certification in these fields applies to certification as a Quality Engineer.

If you have completed a degree* from a college, university or technical school with accreditation accepted by ASQ, part of the eight-year experience requirement will be waived, as follows (only one of these waivers may be claimed):
?Diploma from a technical or trade school?one year will be waived.
?Associate degree?two years waived.
?Bachelor?s degree?four years waived.
?Master?s or doctorate?five years waived.

*Degrees/diplomas from educational institutions outside the United States must be equivalent to degrees from U.S. educational institutions.

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The Bachelors gives you 4 years waived.

Seems to me (and you need to write this up this way) the Principal and Store Manager should give you the other 4 years.

However, how much can you document that these 4 years included items in the CQE body of knowledge? http://asq.org/cert/resource/docs/cqe-bok-2006.pdf Certainly Starbucks must have had a Quality Management System you were expected to use.

Bottom line suggestion is - go ahead an apply, put in your resume with the application. Worst result is they say no and then I would ASSUME they would refund your application fee.

Another consideration is - do you have the requisite knowledge to pass the exam?