BUTLER TWP — Substitute health care professionals will see an additional $100 when they fill in at Butler Area School District for at least the rest of this school year.

The district school board voted Monday to increase the pay for substitute health care professionals, those who have an R.N. designation, from $100 a day to $200 a day.

District Superintendent Brian White said the school district has been short on nurses and health care professionals “almost every day.“ The district has students that require medical services throughout its schools, who rely more on nurse care than some other students.

At full capacity, the district has 16 health care professionals, and White said they sometimes have to move from building to building to cover for one who is out.

“We cannot afford not to have nursing coverage,” White said. “When it’s short, we are pulling a nurse out — it’s just not ideal with the student population.”

The board also voted to have district solicitor Tom Breth file suit and take other appropriate actions against District 7, better known as the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, which in February denied Butler’s appeal regarding the high school football team’s eligibility for the District 10 football playoffs.

White said the ruling that the football team cannot play in District 10 directly impacts students, and the board still has questions about why the PIAA board ruled against the district in the first place.

Breth said the PIAA denied the district’s appeal “for no cause whatsoever,” which is what led the school board to come to the decision to file a suit in the Butler County Court of Common Pleas.

“For some reason the WPIL and PIAA have decided to impose a penalty of excluding the Butler football program from the playoffs,” Breth said. “Their bylaws are very clear on when such a penalty can be imposed, the process that has to be followed and the reasons behind such a severe penalty, none of which is applicable to Butler Area School District.”

White also told the board Monday that administrators were looking for more cost-effective methods of moving ninth-grade students into Butler Senior High School in the upcoming school year, with construction of the new classrooms likely going to be delayed.

Construction is under way at the high school that will add a new wing of classrooms so ninth grade could move into the building. At the previous school board meeting, White said administrators were considering renting or buying modular classrooms to house students while the building’s new classrooms were under construction.

He said that while the modular units were not approved by the board and no money had been spent, a better use of their estimated $335,000 cost would be investing in programs and equipment that schools could use for years to come.

“It would be much better to invest some money into our programs we can use for five or 10 years versus 13 months for trailers,” White said. “We have a number of areas that we think will work, we are going to bring the architect in.”