Take Charge of a New School Year!

Gayle Denny, ELEA Executive Director

    Whether you teach preschoolers, third graders or teenagers, the start of a new school year includes for most teachers and administrators a concept known as “living with stacks”.  If you’re lucky, the stacks stay at school—unfortunately, they often invade our dining room tables, our garages, and every empty chair in the house.

     We spend all summer clearing out the clutter, organizing and recycling, only to have it all start over again in the fall. 

     As I share some organizational tips which might be useful as you enter the new year, keep in mind that they work for me and may not work for everyone, but I pass them along for your consideration:

1. Keep ONE calendar.  Whether it is a fancy Palm Pilot or an old-fashioned paper DayRunner (my personal favorite), keep everything on one calendar and take it back and forth each day from school to home.  Maintaining two calendars (home and work) creates too much chance for error in not transferring appointments/deadlines from one to another.  If you also have the family calendar on the fridge, be sure those entries go into your personal planner as well.

2. On that calendar, schedule in time for yourself, such as hair and manicure appointments, exercise time, soaking in the tub, etc.  If you don’t schedule it, it probably won’t happen.

3. Have ONE place at home where you put school-related work.  A desk in a spare bedroom or den, a small corner of the family room, etc., but NOT THE DINING ROOM TABLE.  If the “stuff” gets to be too much for the one small place, you are bringing WAY too much work home.  Keep things in perspective—you are only one person.

4. Invest in a rolling backpack or small suitcase on wheels to serve as a portable filing system.  You should be able to find one for $25 or less.  Outfit this carrier with a plastic frame for hanging files.  It keeps all the things you need to transport from school to home and back in one place and you won’t break your back doing it.

5. Okay, this one’s pretty radical, folks, so hold on to your hats—GET RID OF THE YELLOW STICKY NOTES!  One of the best things I did years ago as a center director was stop writing notes on yellow stickies and other little note-pad size pieces of paper and starting putting ALL of my notes, including phone messages, reminders to myself, etc., into a 3-ring spiral notebook.  When you have returned the phone call or completed the task, draw a line through it in the notebook, but don’t obliterate it.  How many times have you thought a month or so down the line—gee, I wish I had kept that guy’s phone number.  The notebook goes in the rolling backpack back and forth with you from school to home—ALL NOTES TO YOURSELF go in it.  The only thing I use yellow sticky notes for is to put on something I’m giving to someone else, like, “Please read and respond”, or “Call so-and-so to discuss this please”.

6. This is an oldie, but a goodie:  Never handle a piece of paper more than once.  There are exceptions to this rule, but for the most part I try to live by it.  When you open the mail, immediately toss the junk in the recycle, put the bills in the “payables” file, etc.—don’t let it lay around.

7. Get a 2-inch, 3-ring binder with plastic sheet protectors.  In it, keep a copy of your class roster with parents’ names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.  Either keep one at school and one at home, or keep it in the rolling system that goes back and forth.

8. Use the coffee mugs you have received as gifts over the years to hold pens and highlighters.  It will make you feel less guilty about having so many mugs you don’t use.

9. Send weekly, rather than monthly, newsletters to parents and staff.  One sheet weekly is much more likely to get read than four sheets monthly and is really no more work.  A weekly bulletin keeps everyone up to date.  I used to send a weekly bulletin to the staff on Wednesdays and parents on Fridays (no particular reason for those days—it just needs to be the same day every week) - and now as ELEA Director, I send an electronic newsletter to members every Friday.  It’s on the calendar, and it’s always the same—easy to remember.

10. You don’t have to clear your desk off every night.  I used to pride myself on making sure my desk was neat as a pin when I left the office—the problem is that some really important stuff got “stacked” and I didn’t always find it in a timely manner.  A little mess (not too much) is okay.

11. Schedule “toss out” time on your calendar.  If you know that after the 15th of the month, you won’t need a particular stack of papers anymore, make a note to get rid of them.  If you purge previous year documents during a certain month, put it on the calendar so it gets done.  Many teachers and administrators drown in paper.

12. If your school or center is not a member of ELEA, join now.  There are MANY benefits to membership, such as Employee Benefits Plans, Lutheran Credit Union membership, conferences, printed resources, discounts and free offers, standardized assessments, Elementary Accreditation & Early Childhood Certification programs, and more.  This issue of Views & Vision is the only one this year which will go to ALL ELCA schools and centers.  The other three issues go to members only—don’t miss out!

13. If your school or center IS a member of ELEA, take advantage of the many benefits.  Visit www.eleanational.org or call 800-500-7644 to learn more.

Gayle Denny serves as ELEA Executive Director and may be reached at eleanational@cs.com or by phone at 800-500-7644. 

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