Teacher Tip: Organizing Makeup Work and Absences

Introduction

Organization is seventy percent of a teacher’s job. When a teacher is asked for documentation, it is imperative that he or she knows where to find it. A teacher wants to appear as competent as possible, so it is essential for a teacher to have all of his/her ducks in a row.

When teachers are organized, students realize they must bring their best game to class each and every day.

Organizing Makeup Work and Absences

Every teacher that I know could live without having to distribute or grade another makeup work assignment and would be happy all day every day. Though that is not reality as teachers cannot deny students with absences access to the class curriculum, schools can enact policies in which makeup work is solely the student’s responsibility.

One way I have found to organize makeup work is to keep a box with index cards and dividers. The box and dividers can be used year after year, so it is not that expensive to maintain organized records. The best part is that it is really easy.

How Does this System Work?

Write each student’s name on a card, and do this for every student. So if you have seventy students, you will have seventy cards. I would suggest that you do this class by class. So if you teach three classes, I would invest in three boxes and in three sets of index card dividers. After writing each student’s name on the card, file the cards alphabetically using the dividers, and in minutes you are done. Now, when a student is absent, pull his/her card, and on the back, you write the date of the absence and the assignments that particular student missed on that day.

You will soon learn this is a fabulous way to stay organized, and once you get in the habit of recording absences and assignments, you will know how efficient this system is. When a student comes to you to ask for his or her makeup work, all you have to do, is pull the student’s card.