With just more than a month before students head back to class, Donna Mitchell, a 4th grade teacher in the Gasconade School District, has her work cut out for her.

“I have decided to redo my whole reading program,” she said.

It’s all because of time she's spent in the classroom -- professional development hours that will take a hit in Missouri school districts this year, and especially in smaller districts,

“It’s a huge deal,” Ellen Williams says.

Williams serves as a principal at Galena Elementary, where they rely heavily on the Southwest Regional Professional Development Center's services, both for what they gain in the center’s classrooms and their own.

“This is the latest cut in a series of cuts in the last five years,” said center director Suzy Cutbirth.

This year, Cutbirth saw her dollars dwindle down to $5 million; that's a nearly 50-percent cut from the year before. That coincides with a much tighter budget year for districts, which can't necessarily afford to spend $350 per teacher on a four-day training session.

"If the money's there, it's there; if it's not, it's not,” says WIlliams.

For many, it's just not, which is something educators fear will be evident in the coming months and years.

"It directly affects the classroom because teachers are trained in the most effective strategy, and that's changed," Cutbirth says.

While the overall feeling is this will have the greatest impact on smaller districts, larger ones are not immune.

Even Springfield has had to make cuts to some of its development initiatives.