Pennsylvania
Continuing Education Requirements Affect Evaluators
On November 23, 1999, Governor Tom Ridge signed into law House Bill 8, creating a program of continuing professional education for certified teachers. This program requires certified teachers to satisfactorily complete continuing professional education every five years in order to maintain their certification in active status. Those who do not fulfill the requirements will be placed in inactive status, but they will not lose their certification. The program requirements are as follows:
- (1) Six credit hours of collegiate study;
- (2) Six credit hours of continuing professional education courses;
- (3) 180 hours of continuing professional education programs, activities, or learning experiences; or
- (4) Any combination of the above equivalent to 180 hours.
Many home schooling parents in Pennsylvania rely upon certified teachers to conduct the annual written evaluation of their children’s educational progress as required by state law. Additionally, parents who are certified teachers sometimes conduct home instruction for their children as private tutors. Private tutors do not have to comply with the law governing home education programs but must be “certified by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to teach in the public schools.”
The new law does not expressly address the eligibility of inactive certified teachers to continue to serve home educators as evaluators or to continue as private tutors. However, the new law provides that a certified teacher in inactive status is not eligible for professional or temporary employment in the public schools. An individual with inactive certification may be employed as a temporary substitute teacher for as many as 90 days during a school year.
In the absence of express language in the law stating that certified teachers serving as evaluators and private tutors must have active status, Home School Legal Defense Association takes the position that inactive certification is sufficient. Any problems with the certification issue will not come to fruition until five years from the date of the new law. In the meantime, HSLDA plans to work with state home school leaders and legislators to address any unfavorable interpretations of the new law by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. – Dewitt T. Black
