At the May meeting of the Delegate Assembly, CSBA’s Research and Education Policy Development (REPD) Department presented on a topic that flies beneath the radar for the general public and, until recently, for the Legislature — but is impossible to miss for the people who run school districts and county offices of education. Local educational agencies throughout California face an ever-growing list of mandated state and federal reports, data submissions and planning requirements. We are, as the title of the REPD presentation said, “Drowning in Documentation.”

Our school administrators spend so much time preparing and submitting reports to the state and feds, that — part-icularly in small school districts — it can interfere with their ability to create a safe and productive environment where students are learning at high levels. This is unacceptable, especially when many of the reports are redundant or it’s unclear what purpose they serve. In fact, there are so many mandates for LEAs that not even the California Department of Education (CDE) knows how many are required.

To help sort through this bureaucratic nightmare, CSBA and the California Association of School Business Officials (CASBO) are sponsoring Senate Bill 1315 (Archuleta, D-Pico Rivera) to require the CDE to document and report to the Legislature the number of state and federally mandated reports LEAs must complete. The goal is to identify where information could be condensed, and which reports could be eliminated — helping schools free more time and resources for teaching and learning, providing programs and services and enhancing operational efficiency.

This effort comes not a moment too soon. Everywhere I travel in my role as CSBA President, school leaders talk about the time and resources diverted away from supporting students and toward mandated reports. And demand for the Drowning in Documentation brief — which lists 50 reports LEA must file — was so great copies ran out immediately, forcing CSBA staff to order a second print run on the very first day it was issued. It’s no surprise that attendees at the Delegate Assembly were eager to get their hands on a copy of the brief so they could share it with their legislators and impress upon them the scale of the problem. For maximum impact, feel free to print out this brief on 11” x 17” paper and distribute it in your advocacy.

To be clear, as school trustees, we do not reject the concept of reporting; we know it is a necessary component of accountability and embrace it to the extent it supports student learning, safety and well-being. Accountability is important, but we’ve found that the sheer number of required reports reduces transparency by obscuring potentially useful data under a mountain of redundant and difficult to decipher reports. In addition, the reporting requirements can detract from the actual work of supporting students by limiting the time and resources available to spend on meeting local needs.

A proper reporting system must use an underlying strategy, demonstrate alignment and have a clear objective. At the very least, the administrators of the system must know how many reports they are mandating. Yet, none of these factors exist in California’s current reporting requirements for public schools, creating a hardship for all LEAs — but particularly for small school districts that lack dedicated staff or robust resources to push through reams of paperwork.

There is an assumption that each report helps inform the state about the status and progress of its public education system, but some reports are obsolete or duplicative, and some may even go unreviewed. SB 1315 is the start of an effort to narrow the reports down to those with a clear connection to student achievement and operational effectiveness. In addition to freeing up education personnel to provide more student supports, SB 1315 will also help state lawmakers be better informed about what reports are most helpful to policy development, while dispensing with others that have no real benefit.

We know that California school districts and county offices of education are drowning in documentation. SB 1315 will help you keep your heads above water.