Root PTA urges district to ease teacher burden from state book-inventory directive
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Summary
Root Elementary PTA leaders said teachers spent nearly 40 hours cataloging classroom books to comply with a state directive tied to House Bill 805 and asked the district to advocate for minimizing classroom disruption and staff time.
Mary Catherine Connor, Root Elementary PTA advocacy chair, told the board during public comment that classroom libraries are central to student literacy and that complying with a directive tied to House Bill 805 required substantial staff time. Connor said teachers, administrators, and parent volunteers spent nearly 40 hours scanning, listing, and labeling thousands of books while continuing classroom duties.
"That should never happen," Connor said, describing the work as a burden that pulled time and energy away from instruction. She asked the district to advocate for teachers and to implement state requirements in ways that minimize classroom disruption. Connor said the directive was not a parent request and quoted parent feedback that the requirement "is a disgraceful undermining of teachers" and that teachers "need to be teaching, not scanning library books into a database."
Connor asked the board to weigh new administrative tasks against instructional time and urged district leaders to seek approaches that do not detract from classroom teaching during a period of teacher shortages.