Getting Organized Before School is Out
If you have missed my last posts on end-of-the-year survival activities or a teacher’s must-do list at the end of the year take some time to check them out. Getting organized before school is out is always a huge stress reducer.
Today I want to talk about how important it is to get organized these final weeks of school. This time of year is incredibly overwhelming for teachers. Finishing up the curriculum, getting all the last-minute grades in, preparing for finals, getting ready for graduation…it can all be exhausting. These are all tasks that can’t be ignored. However, the organized voice inside my head tells me that I also have to focus on tasks to end the year.
So get ready to take charge of your classroom and get organized before school is out. You will thank yourself later.
Keep, trash, send it home, donate
How many piles of papers are all over your desk, countertops, filing cabinets, or in bins around your classroom? Now is the time to sort through it all and decide where it needs to go. Take the piles and sort them by what you need to keep, what needs to be trashed, and what needs to be sent home with you or with students.
Take the piles of keep papers and find a place for them in the filing cabinet. Organize your files by language level and unit. Read about how I color-code my files in this post.
Anything you have not used in a while or find to be outdated, throw it out. If the documents can be found online, on a USB, or in the cloud, recycle them. Shred documents with personal information like IEPs and 504 forms. Old tests and quizzes should be shredded too. I am a slight hoarder so every year I try to throw out more and more since we are living in the digital age.
Lastly, make sure you make piles of what you need to take home. Important documents or anything with personal information should go straight to a pile to go home with you. Return student work or recycle it.
If you stumble across materials that no longer serve you, donate them. These are items like first-year teacher books, old textbooks, VHS tapes, or items from a class you no longer teach.
Supplies
Take inventory of your supplies. Throw out any markers, glue sticks, or broken items. Make a list of supplies you need. Get these ordered now so you have them at the start of the school year. If that is not possible, keep the list somewhere it won’t get lost like Google Drive. Count your workbooks so you will be ready to order more in the fall. If you have too many supplies (as if that happens), consider donating to a new teacher.
Bulletin Boards
Takedown all of the decorations on your wall (many schools require this for summer cleaning). Pack them away neatly so you can reuse them again in the fall. Have any bulletin board designs cut out and ready to go or ordered for the fall. I like to take photos of the boards I really love so I can remember to use them again in the future. I keep them in a bulletin board folder on my Drive.
Pack it all up
Nobody wants to come back to the classroom over the summer. Start a list of items you want to take home. These items would be textbooks, USBs, reading materials, plants, food containers, and candy bins. Store things you will leave in a secure place (we all know things get moved around during summer). There are often lots of people in and out of your room during the summer months cleaning or running a summer school class. However, if you properly store your belongings, they will be safe and secure when you return.
Prepare for next year
As crazy as this sounds I start this now. Everything is fresh in my mind. I am still in work mode. The first task I tackle is making any copies that I will need the first two weeks of school. I mean, have you ever tried to copy at the start of the school year? If your school is like mine, your copy machine never works anyway. I revise my newsletter I send to new parents making any changes I might have made to my class during the year. I put important dates on my calendar for the following school year. Then I put together my plan book as much as I possibly can. I use a combination of digital plans and utilize a paper planner so I can quickly see important dates and meeting times. Here is a quick checklist to get you started.
Join the summer 2021 Professional Development group on Facebook to prepare for the fall stress-free.
Recruit students
Getting organized now before school is out is a great stress reducer in the fall. Additionally, another perk to getting started now is you have a captive audience full of little helpers. Grap the students and assign them a job. You would be surprised at how organized they can be (not all of them so choose wisely!).
Report issues
Communicate with the administration and the custodial team any issues that may be happening in your classroom. Follow your school’s procedures for moving any large, bulky items so you are at the top of the list and not waiting for that to happen in the fall. One tip I suggest is getting student numbers for next year and making sure you have enough desks. That is always an issue at the start of the school year.
Share your tips for getting organized before school is out in our social media groups.
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