While teachers in Pennsylvania are required to periodically update their education, schools in Butler County have turned away from the usual conferences and toward in-house and online training.

By state law, teachers must have 180 hours of professional development training every five years.

Some courses are mandatory for teachers, such as suicide prevention for secondary teachers, but there is plenty of room to tailor training to the needs of individuals.

However, time and money are the biggest issues in providing as much professional development as Butler County teachers would like.

The Butler School District has a council of teachers and administrators that discuss teacher training needs, according to Brian Slamecka, assistant superintendent of secondary education.

“We try and support what the needs of our teachers are,” Slamecka said. “If they’re indicating to us that they need more training in a certain area, if they say there’s a need, we want to provide that to them.”

For instance, technology training has been a major request in the district, so training on that has been provided on in-service days as well as after school, he said.

Slamecka said time and money are what prevent districts from providing all of the training staff members would want.

“We do try and send (teachers) to outside trainings,” he said. “We preach that to our administrators and teaching staff, come to us and indicate why (a training) will support what they’re doing in the classroom, and we’ll try to send them there.”

The majority of those out-of-district training sessions still are local, through the Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV or other groups in the Western Pennsylvania area, Slamecka said.

Other than technology, common topics are curriculum development and mapping and working with students that are from diverse backgrounds, he said.

Slamecka said the district has also started to do training sessions online.

At Butler, staff members highlighted professional development as a concern through a districtwide survey.

Tom DeGeorge, president of the Butler Education Association, said staff trainings stalled during the consolidation because the focus was shifted.

“We’re looking forward to having more professional development, back to the way it was, back to the way we’re used to,” he said.

But the move toward in-house training has become much more common, he said, citing tight budgets not only at the district level but at the state and federal levels as well. Because educational organizations and other groups experience funding decreases or increasing costs, there are fewer education conferences now, DeGeorge said.

“It used to be a very high number (of outside conference trainings). Now, there’re limited conferences out there for people because of cutbacks in other organizations,” he said. “If you can get to one a year, you’re lucky.”

At the Seneca Valley School District, about $400,000 will be used for professional development for the current school year, with some of that coming from state grants, said Linda Andreassi, the district’s communications director. The district’s 2016-17 operating budget is $121.5 million, meaning roughly 0.3 percent goes toward staff education.

In-house trainings occur during the 12 teacher training days in the 2016-17 school year, but these trainings can be personalized for teachers, Andreassi said.

“Sometimes there are options for teachers based on their certification/subject area, but just as often, we offer the same training for all,” she said.

Seneca Valley highlights time as a constraint to providing as much training as teachers would like.

“It is always a priority of ours to keep staff up-to-date on the latest best practices,” she said. “To do that, though, we have to make sure we strike a fine balance between providing that training and making sure students are in school and getting the instruction they need.”

The total funding in the district also pays for outsourced coaching, which helps train and support secondary teachers on instructional effectiveness, Andreassi said.

In the Karns City School District, the majority of trainings are conducted at the schools, due primarily to funding availability, said Superintendent Eric Ritzert.

That district has no amount specifically budgeted for professional development and trainings, according to Deana Turner, director of business affairs.

There are five training days for teachers built into the 2016-17 schedule, Turner said. On those days, the school will host instructors from the Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV, an educational support agency serving Butler, Lawrence and Mercer counties.

Ritzert said that trainings provided by the IU are “pretty close to being free.”

“It’s the most cost-effective way to train the volume of staff that we need to,” he said. “Costs are really one of the considerations, but the quality of the training is important.”

When the district does send a teacher to a conference, he or she will bring that knowledge back to train other teachers in the district, Ritzert said.

This year, the district has sent staff members to a training on Advanced Placement courses, spending roughly $7,000 to $10,000, Turner said.

Starting for the 2017-2018 school year, the district will look at having funds designated for professional development, Turner said.

The biggest challenge other than funding, Ritzert said, is providing teachers with the opportunity to train in what interests them.

“I do believe that teachers feel professional development is important. Unfortunately, a lot of what we’re providing is required or mandated and often, that sometimes is perceived as ‘why do we need to do this?’ There’s a lot of things that are grounded in law,” he said.

The Moniteau School District has a specific amount set aside for staff training, according to John D’Amore, business manager and acting superintendent.

For the 2017-18 school year, the district has $61,900 budgeted, about 0.3 percent of the total operating budget of $21.5 million. According to D’Amore, that percent was written into the teachers’ contract years ago, and while it is no longer in the contract, that level has been maintained.

While professional development funding is no longer in the contract, there are five days built into the contract for each school year to provide training, according to Jeremy Borkowski, the president of the Moniteau Education Association.

Borkowski said the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Pennsylvania State Education Association offer classes online, so teachers take advantage of that. Those online classes are free but require teachers to do them on their own time, Borkowski said.

Eagle staff writer Laurie Lindsay contributed to this report.