Organizing School Clutter

I see how many papers I send home as a teacher.  Multiply that by several children and it can be overwhelming to parents.  I'll admit to frustration when I have to remind parents for forms I sent home a week earlier, but do understand being buried under all the flyers, corrected papers, etc. 

I'm including link by Lori Morero of clutterdiet.com on tips for dealing with school papers that come home.  Here are some of the highlights along with a few of my own.

1.  Take action immediately on forms that are timely (field trips, information for the office, teacher notes) and put them in a special place your child sees when he/she opens the binder or folder.  I have parents put things in folders that we don't find for a week.  Make sure your child can see them.

2.  You don't need to keep every piece of precious art work.  Scanning them into a digital format is a wonderful option.

3.  Last year I received a kind note from a mother.  They were financially secure, but she was concerned about all the pleas for money that were coming home from the school:  spring pictures, field trips, fund raisers, etc.  She suggested a limit from the school to avoid stressing other families.  Remember, you don't need to buy fall and spring pictures....with all the digital photography, you have plenty of your child!  Toss those flyers with ease.  For fundraisers, often receiving 50% profit on a product is rare.  If you don't have time or patience for fundraising, donate $20 and think of the school receiving 100% profit!  (And then throw out the fundraising packet!)

4.  I would suggest keeping graded papers through the end of the marking period, then tossing them.  That doesn't sound like "Simplify," does it?  Well, I do admit that we teachers grade so much that we sometimes fail to mark a paper or two into the grade books.  If you get a note that your child is missing "assignment X", you can go through the pile and sometimes find it.  (Please be kind to that teacher though...we see hundreds of papers a week!)

5.  Keep a box for each child with work through all 12 years.  One box in the attic made me feel like I was holding on to their childhood a little bit.  I haven't gone through the boxes, but I know they are there.
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/design/school-papers-organizing?src=rss