Act 48: Pennsylvania Continuing Education Requirements for Certified Educators

What Act 48 Requires

Act 48 of 1999 requires all Pennsylvania educators holding Pennsylvania public school certification to complete 180 hours of continuing education every five years and record them in the Pennsylvania Professional Education Record Management System (PERMS). The requirement applies to holders of Instructional I certificates, Instructional II certificates, Educational Specialist I certificates, Educational Specialist II certificates, administrative certificates, and supervisory certificates.

The 180-hour requirement begins on the issue date printed on the certificate and extends for five years. Educators enter their own hours into PERMS, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education verifies completion at the end of each five-year period. Pennsylvania does not charge a certificate renewal fee for meeting Act 48 requirements, but the educator must meet the hour requirement to avoid inactive status.

If an educator holds multiple Pennsylvania certificates, each certificate has its own five-year period and 180-hour requirement.

What Counts Toward the 180 Hours

Acceptable activities include college coursework, in-service training, school district professional development, conferences, workshops, and approved online courses. One college semester credit equals 30 Act 48 hours; one continuing education unit (CEU) equals 10 hours. Activities must be sponsored by an Act 48 Approved Provider or documented by the employing school district.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education maintains a public directory of Act 48 Approved Providers on the PERMS website. Any organization can apply to become an Act 48 Approved Provider by submitting a provider application and signing a provider agreement. Once approved, the provider receives a unique identification number that participants enter into PERMS when recording hours.

Educators may count up to 60 hours per five-year period for collegial activities, including peer coaching, mentoring, curriculum development, and action research, if documented by the employing district. The district must issue a written verification form that includes the educator's name, the activity description, the number of hours, and an administrator's signature.

Self-directed learning activities such as reading professional literature or attending non-approved conferences do not count unless the educator submits them for post-approval through PERMS and receives Department approval. Post-approval is not guaranteed. The Department evaluates each submission and may decline to award hours if the activity lacks direct relevance to the educator's certificate area or does not include evidence of learning.

How to Enter and Track Hours in PERMS

Educators create a PERMS account at perms.pa.gov using their Pennsylvania educator license number. After completing an activity, the educator logs in and enters the date, provider name, activity title, and number of hours. If the activity was sponsored by an Act 48 Approved Provider, the educator enters the provider's assigned approval number. If the activity was district-sponsored, the educator indicates the district as the provider.

Educators must retain documentation for each activity, including certificates of completion, transcripts, or signed district verification forms, for four years after the activity date. The Pennsylvania Department of Education does not require educators to upload documentation to PERMS unless the Department requests it during an audit. Audits are random. The Department selects a percentage of educators each year and requests supporting documentation for a sample of the hours entered.

PERMS displays a running total of hours entered during the current five-year period. The system does not send automatic reminders when the compliance period nears its end.

Maintaining Act 48 Compliance

Note the issue date on your Pennsylvania certificate; this is the start of your five-year compliance period.

Participate in professional development activities throughout the five-year period. Aiming for at least 36 hours per year avoids last-minute accumulation.

After each activity, log in to PERMS and enter the activity details, including the provider name, date, and hours earned.

Retain all documentation (certificates, transcripts, sign-in sheets) in a personal file.

Sixty days before the end of your five-year period, log in to PERMS and verify that the system shows at least 180 hours entered.

If you fall short, identify additional approved activities or request post-approval for prior activities that were not pre-approved.

At the end of the five-year period, the Pennsylvania Department of Education reviews your PERMS record and issues a new certificate if you have met the requirement.

If an educator does not complete the 180 hours by the end of the compliance period, the certificate moves to inactive status. The educator may not work in a Pennsylvania public school until the deficiency is resolved. To reactivate an inactive certificate, the educator must complete the missing hours and submit a reactivation application to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Where Districts Get This Wrong

Districts assume that offering professional development automatically satisfies Act 48 for participants, but the district must either be an Act 48 Approved Provider or issue individual verification forms that participants enter into PERMS themselves. Human resources staff believe they can enter Act 48 hours on behalf of employees, but PERMS requires each educator to log in with their own credentials and self-report hours.

Districts fail to assign a provider number to in-service days, so participants must enter the district name as a free-text provider rather than selecting a verified approved provider, which increases audit risk.

Districts count attendance at mandatory meetings toward Act 48 hours without documenting the professional content, but the Pennsylvania Department of Education audits a random sample of entries and disallows hours that lack a clear connection to educator practice. PERMS does not accept batch uploads from employers; only Act 48 Approved Providers with a provider agreement can submit bulk records.

Districts do not communicate the difference between Act 48 hours and Act 45 requirements for Instructional I certificate holders seeking advancement to Instructional II, so early-career teachers conflate the two systems. Act 45 governs the conversion from an Instructional I to an Instructional II certificate and requires six college credits or 180 hours of planned continuing professional education within the first five years of teaching. Act 48 governs ongoing renewal for all certificate holders. The two statutes operate independently, but many beginning teachers must satisfy both during their first five years.

Why Regional Agencies and Districts Use a Dedicated System for Act 48 Tracking

A regional education service agency or district cannot rely on PERMS alone because PERMS is an individual educator's record, not an employer roster of pending expirations. A professional learning office needs to see which employees hold Pennsylvania certification, when each five-year period expires, how many hours each employee has entered, and which employees are at risk of non-renewal.

Solutionwhere tracks Pennsylvania certification expiration dates, logs which district-sponsored sessions count toward Act 48, and flags employees who have not entered hours into PERMS by a district-defined threshold date. The system stores the Act 48 Approved Provider number for each district-sponsored session, so participants receive a printed certificate showing the provider number they must enter into their own PERMS account.

Because the Pennsylvania Department of Education audits a percentage of entries each year, districts use Solutionwhere to retain sign-in sheets, agendas, and presenter credentials for four years in a single repository linked to the corresponding session record. When the Department requests documentation during an audit, the district can retrieve the complete file for the session without searching email or filing cabinets.

For intermediate units and BOCES serving multiple districts, Solutionwhere separates participants by employer while maintaining a single provider number, so the agency can report total hours awarded under its Act 48 Approved Provider status without duplicating records. The system distinguishes between participants who work for the agency itself and participants employed by member districts attending agency-sponsored workshops.

Managing Act 48 Compliance Across Your District

Directors of professional learning and human resources administrators in Pennsylvania school districts carry responsibility for ensuring that certified staff remain eligible to teach. Act 48 compliance is an individual obligation, but districts face operational consequences when multiple employees enter inactive status in the same semester.

A centralized tracking system shows which staff members hold Pennsylvania certification, when each five-year period ends, and whether the employee has logged sufficient hours in PERMS. The system generates alerts for employees who fall below a district-defined threshold, giving the professional learning office time to schedule makeup sessions before the compliance period closes. Responsible for tracking this across your staff? See how districts manage it in Solutionwhere.