Every Pennsylvania certified educator is required to complete 180 credit hours of continuing professional education by the end of their respective five year compliance period in order to maintain an active certificate. The current continuing professional education compliance period for many educators will end June 30, 2017.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) recently sent notices to all educators who have a balance of hours to complete by June 30, 2017. As this deadline approaches PDE is reaching out to educational leaders and partners to encourage everyone to join in a united effort to get the message out to educators that they need to complete their hours as required.

As a reminder PDE currently provides free online courses for Pennsylvania-certified educators to earn Act 48 hours through the Standards Aligned System. Pennsylvania educators register for free on the site and then follow the instructions to access a wide variety of self-paced courses based on the Danielson Framework for Teaching, as well as a variety of general professional development courses anchored in the components of the Standards Aligned System.

The Division of Planning will continue to communicate reminders to educators in the coming weeks and work to assist those who may have questions or concerns. Educators may access the Act 48 Professional Education Record Management System (PERMS) to check their progress and email any questions to ra-edact48@pa.gov.