For many teachers, the start of the school year is frustration—in triplicate.

Student media consent forms, emergency contact cards, acknowledgment of school rules and procedures—the list of forms and paperwork that most teachers must complete or shepherd from home to the administrative office is big and usually gets bigger every year. To be sure, some of the paperwork is a necessary evil, documentation that helps schools operate smoothly and accountably. But a lot of it lives on thanks only to bureaucratic overlap and overkill.

How big a problem are we talking about? A recent survey by an AFT local representing teachers in the San Antonio area found that eight out of 10 elementary school teachers and almost seven out of 10 secondary teachers felt that unnecessary paperwork was a significant headache. “It’s a huge percentage of teachers who feel that paperwork is draining their time and energy away from where it matters most—the classroom and the students,” says Tom Cummins, president of the Northside Federation of Teachers.

The fight has escalated to the state level, where the Texas Federation of Teachers and other AFT affiliates successfully lobbied for a law designed to trim red tape. The 2003 Restricting Written Information Act directs school boards to limit redundant requests for information, curb the number and lengths of written reports that teachers are required to prepare, and review paperwork requirements imposed on classroom teachers.

Making sure districts fulfill their legal requirements to trim paperwork will be a priority this fall for the Northside local, Cummins reports, particularly because there are already indications that school boards associations are angling to blunt the law. “A lot of school boards think this is just a case of teachers whining,” he explains. “They have no clue about the day-to-day burdens imposed on the classroom teacher” by this avalanche of paperwork.