How To Tame School Papers

I thought I was drowning in paperwork when my two children were in preschool together. Looking back, I had no idea just what it felt like to deal with paperwork from elementary school and middle school. Each day I am inundated with school papers, homework, order forms for citrus fruits, membership forms for Girl Scouts, sports signup forms, PTA newsletters, report cards, and the list goes on and on.

Over the years I have used in boxes, file folders, envelopes, bins, milk crates, wicker baskets to control the endless flow of paperwork from school. My conclusion after eight years and three children in school...none of these receptacles work.

There is only one system that works for me: a simple 3-ring binder, a hole puncher, and a spiral notebook for each of my three children. My system is:

• Paper comes in
• Paper is evaluated for whether it needs to be returned to school with money, saved, or tossed
• Saved papers are hole-punched and added to binder

Each child's binder contains report cards, class placement assignments, teacher's requirements for each class, and any written correspondence from teacher.

I use the spiral notebook to record information from back-to-school nights, parent-teacher conferences, and any phone calls/meetings with teachers about each child. I could not function without having the binder and notebook at my fingertips. I bring both to parent-teacher conferences for easy reference.