When In Doubt, Throw It Out: Making Sense of End-Of-Year Paperwork

The end of the school year is upon us, and no matter your kids’ ages, they’ll be coming home with lots and lots of paperwork. Resist the urge to keep it all. And under no circumstances should you put “in a good spot” to get to “when you have time”. We all know time doesn’t come, and these papers will never be a priority! So we’ve put together some advice to help you curb this clutter before it starts.

Some general guidelines we suggest include initially placing the onus on the child. Have them go through their work and put aside what they deem important. Regardless if it’s everything, nothing, or somewhere in between, take your own pass at it with these five considerations in mind:

1) Relevance. Papers should be relevant to current and/or future academic/career pursuits.

2) Long-Term Value. Papers that can serve as valuable study aids, comprehensive study guides, or well-written essays.

3) Personal Significance. Challenging assignments that were executed successfully, awards and accolades, or significant milestones. Examples of the latter include REALLY good artwork, handprints, things with their pictures.

4) Practicality. Consider if your student will likely access these papers in the future. Have you/they ever sought to see previous years’ work? Or if the information in the documents is easily available or replaceable. Think class handouts, announcements, syllabi.

5) Space Considerations. When considering papers to keep, be mindful of the space you have to store it. Are all your drawers and files already overflowing? And consider digitizing (taking pics, scanning or creating a computer file) to make referencing that much easier in the future, as well as only taking up “soft space” on a hard drive.