Professional Development for Private and Charter School Teachers

At a private school, the school you work for and the associations it belongs to arrange your professional development.

What lands on your calendar follows the school's pedagogy, its budget and its memberships; the pages we read for this guide publish no sector-wide schedule that all private schools share.

The association layer is where this guide finds professional development shared across schools.

NAIS — the National Association of Independent Schools — runs the annual conference for the independent school community.

One fully funded, highly selective option in the independent school world is built for early-career teachers.

The Klingenstein Summer Institute is a fully funded, highly selective two-week fellowship for independent and international school teachers with one to five years of full-time experience.

Pedagogy-specific schools tie professional growth to their method.

AWSNA, the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America, says many Waldorf schools require teachers to have completed Waldorf teacher preparation before hiring, while others hire teachers who commit to training while teaching.

The practical move is to check both doors when you evaluate a school or plan a year of growth: what the school runs in-house, and what its associations and networks open to you as a member school's teacher.

If you are new to the sector, the private school teacher career guide covers the job itself and how schools hire.

The two charter networks this guide checked describe training as something the network provides, not something each teacher finds alone.

The first is Uncommon Schools: it offers Apprentice Teacher and Relay Resident roles for people with limited or no teaching experience, and provides two to three weeks of high-quality training before each school year plus ongoing individualized coaching.

Great Hearts, a classical charter network, trains across career stages.

Its Institute runs the APEX Program for School Leadership, a series of short courses for Teacher-Leaders, Rising Leaders — deans and instructional coaches among them — and Academy Leaders in classical schools.

Great Hearts also says it partners with higher-education institutions so employees can earn degrees while working, and runs a Special Student Services Pathway encouraging current teachers to train for special education and ESL roles.

The two describe different shapes: Uncommon's training lands before the school year, with coaching continuing through it, while Great Hearts' programs span leadership short courses, degree partnerships and a special-education pathway.

Networks differ, and a network's own careers page is the authority on its training — the two named here are the networks this guide checked, not a full list.

Network residencies are a different track.

Federal law — the Higher Education Act — defines a teaching residency program as school-based teacher preparation in which the prospective teacher teaches for one academic year alongside a mentor teacher, with concurrent coursework from a partner institution.

Residencies are entry programs into the classroom, not the in-service professional development this page covers.

Conferences are the professional development teachers across different schools share; the independent school association calendar contributes the first three fixtures below, and pedagogy-specific providers add their own.

NAIS has rebranded its annual conference as Thrive: Thrive 2027 meets March 3-5, 2027 in Baltimore, registration opens in October 2026, and NAIS describes it as open to all members of the independent school community.

NAIS's convening on inclusion has a new name as well.

The People of Color Conference URLs now redirect to NAIS Gather, which NAIS describes as its new convening on inclusion and belonging that builds on what it learned from educators of color; Gather 2026 runs December 2-4, 2026 in Boston.

Role groups have their own fixtures.

The CASE-NAIS Independent Schools Conference — the annual advancement and development conference for independent schools — runs January 31-February 2, 2027 in New York, which tells you where advancement and development staff gather rather than classroom teachers.

Charter-side conferences exist too, at least in classical education.

The Great Hearts Institute, affiliated with the Great Hearts charter network, hosts the annual National Symposium for Classical Education and lists an Academy for Classical Teachers among its offerings.

One no-cost option worth knowing: Hillsdale College's Hoogland Center for Teacher Excellence, established in 2001, runs free one-day seminars around the U.S. that are open to teachers from all types of schools.

Lunch is included; accommodations are not.

The four funded programs below serve classroom teachers under different school-type rules.

Fund for Teachers states its eligibility for public, private and charter schools, and the Klingenstein Summer Institute is for independent and international school teachers.

The NEH and College Board pages we read address K-12 and AP teachers without naming school types, so check each program's guidelines.

The Klingenstein Summer Institute is a fully funded, highly selective two-week fellowship for independent and international school teachers with one to five years of full-time experience.

The fellowship covers tuition, housing and meals but not travel; KSI 2027 meets in late June near Princeton, New Jersey, and the application deadline is January 15, 2027.

Fund for Teachers grants have the widest stated school-type eligibility in this guide: they are open to full-time PreK-12 teachers in public, private and charter schools in the continental U.S., Hawaii and Alaska.

Applicants must spend at least 50 percent of their time directly instructing students and have at least three years of teaching experience, and applications run October through January.

The National Endowment for the Humanities runs tuition-free one- to four-week humanities programs for K-12 educators through its Institutes and Landmarks of American History and Culture programs, with stipends of $650-$3,450.

Subject-level summer training has a funded route of its own.

College Board's AP Summer Institutes are 30-hour trainings, online or in person, that prepare teachers to plan and teach an AP course, and College Board awards participant grants to qualifying teachers to attend.

Online professional development is the thinnest part of this research: the Klingenstein Summer Institute, the funded fellowship described above, is a two-week in-person residency near Princeton with housing and meals covered.

The options we verified that touch online delivery are hybrids rather than fully remote programs.

One clear option is College Board's AP Summer Institutes: the same 30-hour AP course-planning training runs online or in person, so you can take it without summer travel.

Classical education runs its own hybrid model.

The CiRCE Institute's Apprenticeship is a part-time, three-year classical teacher development program that combines in-person retreats twice a year — a five-day summer retreat and a four-day winter retreat — with twice-monthly Zoom sessions, leading to a CiRCE Classical Education Certification.

It is private credentialing, not a state license.

Two checks before you pay for any online PD: confirm the format on the provider's own page, and confirm what the credential or contact hours are worth to your school.

A certificate from a training body is that body's credential, not a state teaching license.

Five funding patterns cover the programs in this guide, and which one applies depends on the program and the school.

Built into the job.

Uncommon Schools provides its pre-year training and ongoing coaching as part of employment, and Great Hearts partners with higher-education institutions so employees can earn degrees while working.

Funded by the program.

The Klingenstein Summer Institute covers tuition, housing and meals — travel is on you — and NEH institutes are tuition-free and pay stipends.

Hillsdale's Center for Teacher Excellence seminars are complimentary with lunch included; accommodations are not.

Grants you apply for.

Fund for Teachers takes applications October through January, and College Board awards participant grants to qualifying AP Summer Institute attendees.

Waldorf teachers already working at member schools have a direct line too: for 2026-27, AWSNA offers a Currently Practicing Teacher Grant of $600 per year for teachers already at member schools.

For Waldorf teachers in training, AWSNA also offers a $750-per-year Teacher Education Loan, interest-free while enrolled, that can convert to a grant if you teach at a member school after graduating from teacher training.

Sponsorship with a service commitment.

Montessori Northwest describes the typical school-sponsorship arrangement for trainees: the school lends tuition and fees in return for a multi-year commitment, usually two to three years.

Some schools forgive part of the loan each year of service; others deduct repayment from paychecks, and a trainee who leaves usually repays the balance with interest.

Out of pocket.

Private credentialing programs publish their prices: the CiRCE Apprenticeship costs $3,247 per year plus a $400 deposit and a $75 application fee, with travel, lodging and food for the two annual retreats extra.

Which pattern reaches you first depends on your employer, so ask what the school sets aside for PD before you assume you are paying alone.

If the answer is nothing, the funded programs in this guide publish their own eligibility rules — check them against your situation before you apply.