The bill was supported by a CSBA brief, “Drowning in Documentation: Reporting Requirements for California LEAs,” which included a comprehensive list of the hundreds of state and federal plans, reports and data submissions required of local educational agencies.
In Drowning in Documentation: Toward More Effective and Manageable Reporting for California Districts (csba.org/DrowninginDocs2), a follow-up report released in October, CSBA’s Research and Education Policy Development (REPD) team provides a thorough overview of the current landscape, as well as recommendations for the Legislature, the Governor, the State Board of Education (SBE) and other state agencies to take a multifaceted approach to address the challenges LEAs face as a result of overly cumbersome reporting requirements.
“Conducting focus groups across the state was an eye-opening experience as participants breathed life into the workload associated with the excessive amount of mandated state and federal reports,” explained REPD Chief Dr. Naomi Eason. “As much as we would like to provide immediate relief for our members in this area, the passage of SB 1315 is just the initial step. Now the real work begins to collaborate with stakeholders on where and how to streamline requirements. CSBA looks forward to participating in paving a new road ahead where accountability remains at the forefront and local staff are better positioned to allocate more time focusing on student learning and achievement.”
Many reporting requirements undoubtedly serve important purposes, such as ensuring proper use of public funds, promoting transparency and driving continuous improvement. However, the sheer volume and complexity of these requirements has become increasingly burdensome for LEAs who often must include duplicative information or complete outdated documents.
Drowning in Documentation: Toward More Effective and Manageable Reporting for California Districts highlights the numerous ways in which LEAs grapple with an overwhelming array of reporting requirements from both state and federal authorities.
District and county office of education leaders surveyed noted steep costs in labor and time, particularly those in small LEAs where the superintendent and/or principals must spend time filling out reports that they would otherwise spend on their leadership duties. Many resort to hiring outside consultants in order to meet submission deadlines — money that could be spent elsewhere to support students and staff.
The Drowning in Documentation report features quotes from anonymized superintendents, administrators and state staffers demonstrating the undue burden of myriad reporting requirements at the expense of focusing on student well-being and achievement.
“It causes anxiety that I’m going to miss a deadline. There’s a steady stream and all have slightly different requirements,” said one small district superintendent.
Due to the reporting workload, smaller LEAs and those with fewer resources also often miss out on applying for grants and other funds, which exacerbates opportunity gaps. Additionally, morale has suffered as administrators feel unsupported and question whether the data they submit is being effectively utilized. “They’ve taken leadership out of the equation and made us administrators. All we do is write plans,” said another superintendent.
Both the state and LEAs have developed information overload. Struggle to meet constant deadlines often leads to a compliance mentality rather than thoughtful planning and reflection. California collects such vast amounts of data that it lacks the capacity and mechanisms to systematically analyze and act upon the information to address problems or drive improvements.
For example, the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), while designed to provide local accountability and drive thoughtful budgeting, often falls short of providing genuine transparency for parents, communities and school boards due to its complexity and length. Additionally, the initial simplicity of Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) reporting has given way to detailed plans and reports for nearly every new categorical funding stream and has expanded the already onerous LCAP.
Among the recommendations detailed in the report, CSBA’s REPD team calls on policymakers to:
- Recommit to the logic of LCFF: Reconsider the use of categorical programs outside of the LCFF model and commit to a three-year goal of significantly reducing the number of data elements in the LCAP.
- Reduce the reporting load: Conduct a comprehensive review of current requirements, aiming to reduce LEA time spent on reporting by at least 25 percent by, in part, prioritizing the removal of redundancies and data elements that are not actively used for decision-making.
- Increase support for LEAs: Develop sample content for required plans that LEAs can adapt or adopt; enable very small districts to choose an intermediary, such as COEs or regional hubs, to write plans and reports on their behalf; and shift the data compilation burden to higher levels (e.g. county or state) and invest in staffing and/or technology. Aim for the majority of an LEA’s time to be spent uploading data into existing systems, not repeatedly pulling data from local systems to populate individual reports. (This model has been effective in handling many federal reporting requirements.)
- Develop better feedback loops between the state and LEAs: Establish standing advisory groups that provide opportunities for end-users to weigh in on existing requirements and future changes, and regularly analyze SBE waiver requests to identify common challenges and potential statutory fixes.