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State committee presents teacher paperwork survey; committee eyes PowerSchool fixes and templates to reduce duplication
Summary
A committee formed under SB 280 reported survey results showing teachers spend large amounts of time on paperwork—653 responses (549 classroom teachers)—and proposed five action steps, including tracing paperwork source, templates, and better use of PowerSchool analytics to reduce duplicate data entry.
A state board committee formed after SB 280 presented findings from a teacher paperwork‑reduction effort, saying digital surveys and committee audits identified significant time burdens that may be reducing instructional time.
Heather Hurt, chair of the paperwork streamlining committee and a fifth‑grade teacher, told board members the committee—composed largely of classroom teachers—collected 653 survey responses over three weeks: 549 classroom teachers, 22 administrators and 82 support personnel. The committee identified that some required documentation (student plans, stakeholder communication) shows a high time investment and a high perceived payoff for student achievement, while other requirements (long‑format lesson plans, meeting documentation) have high time cost with lower perceived payoff.
"We had 653 completed responses... 549 of them were classroom teachers," Hurt said, describing the survey as a temperature check that revealed both common burdens and areas for targeted change.
Presenters and board members discussed redundant entry across multiple platforms and the role of local requirements versus state mandates. Staff and board members said PowerSchool analytics and insights, a statewide unified platform, could reduce duplicate entry if better integrated at the classroom level. Board members urged careful analysis because some burdens arise from federal or local requirements that cannot be changed by the state department alone.
The committee described five action steps and near‑term plans to create a template that traces paperwork to its origin (federal, legislative, state department, or local), provide consistent communication and training between state sections and classroom teachers, further analyze PowerSchool tools for duplication reduction, and refine guidance for lesson plans and meeting documentation. Presenters emphasized the effort is ongoing and will continue collecting data before recommending statutory changes.
Board discussion stressed that survey respondents are a small fraction of the system’s roughly 100,000 employees and that further surveys and targeted audits will be necessary to determine how widespread specific problems are and whether local policy rather than state policy drives duplication.
