House adopts bill to streamline teacher paperwork after amendment to keep state task forces in charge

The Alabama House on Tuesday passed Senate Bill 280, a measure intended to reduce duplicate paperwork for K–12 teachers, after adopting a committee substitute and a floor amendment that clarifies the bill's scope and preserves the role of existing literacy and numeracy task forces.

Supporters said the measure will let teachers enter information once on the state'level system — PowerSchool — and cut repetitive data entry. "We want to keep teachers from having to put the same data in over and over and over," Representative Collins said on the floor while explaining the bill's purpose and the substitute. Collins said the bill substitutes federal programs from state paperwork because the state does not have authority to streamline federal requirements.

The bill directs the State Department of Education to rely on a single platform for certain state reporting and sets up a committee…