A sample of what’s currently in my recycle box:

• memoir rubric
• using prior knowledge to understand unfamiliar text
• 5 year Strategic Management Plan from 2010-2015
• certificate of attendance from Ohio Resource Center
• Ohio Academic content standards with notes
• thank you note from Ronald McDonald House for former fourth grade economic project
• Reading Level Correlation Chart

 A sample of what’s currently in my keep pile:

• Elementary Gifted Service Matrix and Advanced Learner Specialist file
• PD notes from Promoting a School’s Literacy Community
• 32 Text Structure notes from Katie Wood Ray
• Where You Are From George Ella Lyons poem
• Suggested Expectations for conventions K-12 document
• pacing guides
• curriculum maps
• a copy of the first day of school letter I sent home for all 15 years
• a xerox copy of an amazing piece of student art work

Do I need any of it?

• Will I remember what I want to use from what I’ve recycled or kept?
•  Does it really matter to my remembering if I have “it” or not?

When I was a teacher I used to keep things in case I needed or wanted to replicate or modify something I had done in the past.

When I was a curriculum coordinator I kept things to show work in progress and keep us moving forward.

With a change in administrations twice in nine months, I kept things because no one else would have ever known things existed.

In many ways I am a blank slate, starting over. I bring with me my prior knowledge and background of experiences.

No one from my new school is going to ask me to see something from my old district because they won’t know it existed, nor would it be relevant.

Why am I re-sorting for the twentieth time, rather than just pitching it all?

It took me three years to part with all my fourth grade files, and I should learn from that. Never once did I go back and use anything in those files.

Part of my brain still thinks, “When I write a book about this….”, I will want hard copies of things to help with my writing.

I want to just dump it all as I look forward, but I still just can’t make myself do it…