First World Problems

I mentioned that I will be switching rooms next year, right?  The room I am moving to is one of my favorite rooms in our school.  That's the good news.

The bad news?  Anyone who has a key to our school auditorium has a key to my room and my huge prop closet where my file cabinet will be stored. (Why, you might ask?  My room is the passing area behind stage.  One key allows access to all areas stage related.)

The really bad news?  I don't have a file cabinet that locks.  (Which of course isn't near as bad as my student-teacher-soon-to-be-colleague who doesn't have file cabinet at all.)

It hasn't been lost on me that all of my files, tests, etc. will be easily accessible to anyone with a key.

The good news?  There is one wooden coat closet/cupboard that locks.  I will be the only person with the key to it.

So what am I doing?  After searching on Pinterest for some kind of answer, I am cleaning out my file cabinet and creating notebooks of all the units that I teach.  I save what I want and keep a copy for my student-teacher-soon-to-be-colleague and am throwing out the rest.

My file cabinet will still hold old units or files from classes that I no longer teach.  (Though I am sorting through all of that, too.) I am hoping that what is left only takes up one or two drawers of my huge cabinet.  The rest will be used for script storage.

Each of my new unit notebooks holds page protectors where I store tests, activities/exercises, and copies of assignments.  I will be able to pull out what I need to use.  Everything should be easy to find.

The early stages of this project

When I move to my new room, these notebooks will be stored on a shelf in my locking closet/cupboard.  Did I mention that I will have the only key? With a great deal of work and quite a bit of downsizing, I will have curriculum security again. The best solution to a fairly crummy problem.

How much work is this?  I spent six hours and managed to sort and store 4 units.  (Two of them were really small units.) And my trash can was full.

I'm not sure how many days this is going to take, but I am sure it will be worth it.  I'm also sure that when I retire (5-8 years away?), I will be quite glad that I did this work now. (Less to throw away then!)