A committee told the Alabama State Department of Education that it had identified “the most burdensome paperwork tasks” for teachers.
The Teacher Paperwork Streamlining Committee is a 22-member committee that works to identify “practical ways to reduce unnecessary paperwork and streamline processes for educators across Alabama.”
“Nobody wants teachers to have to do more paperwork. But then we have to figure out, you know, well, where is this coming from, and which things are legacy that maybe nobody is looking at anymore, and which things are required by either federal or state law,” Alabama State Schools Superintendent Eric Mackey said during the Dec. 11 work session.
Senate Bill 280, sponsored by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, and passed by the Legislature last year, requires the state department to develop a digital platform and data sharing system that consolidates documentation required under laws or policies in a way that can streamline paperwork in a manner compliant with education programs.
The committee defined paperwork as both electronic and physical copy non-instructional requirements made of teachers.
“Technology doesn’t make everything faster, necessarily. So we want to include all of that in our discussions,” committee member Jeff Norris said to State Board of Education members.
The committee conducted a survey of over 650 educators and found that teachers are spending 80% of their time completing lesson plans and 78% of their time documenting meetings. Both categories had a lower perceived effect on student achievement at 62% and 48% respectively.
Streamlining Paperwork Committee Chair Heather Hurt told the board members that teachers generally did not have a problem with lesson plan paperwork.
“You can’t just show up and have a good lesson. That’s not the problem. It’s the long form written like you’re in a teacher preparation program. That is what people were very vocal about having a problem with,” she said.
Meeting documentation includes individualized education programs, created for students in special education classes, and other related services to help improve educational results. It also includes grade level meetings.
“Our teachers work hard. They want to work hard, and they do work hard, and it pays off when their student achievement is attached with the paperwork,” Hurt said. “But as we know, time is our most valuable commodity, especially in a classroom.”
The survey also found that educators are doing redundant paperwork, including duplicating information for lesson plans.
“Attendance is tracked in PowerSchool, grade book and paper copy — three times for the same data,” one survey response said.
Mackey reminded board members that the sample for the survey responses is small in comparison to the 100,000 employees the state has.
“It doesn’t mean we don’t need to identify them and deal with them, but I want us to be careful we don’t panic and think that some things are happening everywhere when it literally might be one of our 1,600 schools where this is happening, which is the reason the committee is not it’s not a one off,” Mackey said to the board members.
Mackey said it was “news to me” that teachers were completing redundant paperwork.
“If you had asked me at the table here, does anybody still require paper grade books in addition to the power school attendance, I would have said, I’m sure there’s not. But there are,” Mackey said. “This is why their work’s really good, because we’re finding out what these layers are.”
State school board member Wayne Reid said during the meeting that he liked to hear the complaints from the teachers.
“I like the ones that complain the most because they’re the ones who probably speak for more people,” he said. “There are an equal number of people who have complaints but say they don’t want to get their name out there.”
Hurt said some of the next things the committee will do is create a template for the state department to define paperwork and determine if it’s coming from the state, federal or local bodies and look into other types of paperwork including lesson plans, meeting documentation and parent communication to provide guidance for teachers.
Read more at AlabamaReflector.com.