Effective School Year Planning – 40 Important Documents You Need

School leaders must be prepared for the upcoming school year before it even begins, which means creating and reviewing numerous documents in advance. These documents are critical for ensuring that schools have the resources to provide high-quality education to all students.

Remember

This is not a complete list but should be an excellent start for you and your leadership team to get going.

It is an outstanding guide for new principals or people wanting to become principals. We suggest you download, print, or bookmark it!

Although the summer is a great time to prepare for the upcoming school year, we suggest you take time during the last week of school to go through this list. Then you can feel confident when you come back from break.

40 Important Documents for School Leaders

1. Budget
2. Master Schedule
3. Bell Schedule
4. Discipline Policy
5. IEP Compliance tracker
6. Emergency Evacuation and School Safety Plan
7. Fire drill plans and schedule (and all others required by the district e.g. tornado, earthquake, active shooter)
8. Schoolwide intervention plan
9. Testing Schedule
10. Coaching and Supervision schedule
11. PD plan
12. School site council plan
13. School Improvement plan from the previous year
14. SST Plan
15. Schoolwide rules
16. Behavior intervention
17. After-school plan/structure
18. Staff handbook/student handbook
19. HR Policies
20. Back-to-school letters and event planning (student and parent orientation, etc.)
21. Hall movement
22. Room assignments
23. Supply replenishment
24. Student and staff logins
25. Lunch duty schedule
26. Book room inventory
27. Class lists
28. Formal and informal observation schedules
29. Inventory of curriculum guides
30. Template for newsletter/announcements
31. SEL plan
32. Dismissal management (stations, assignments, pick-up/drop-off protocols, etc.)
33. New teacher onboarding
34. Plan and schedule leadership meetings
35. Committees: establishment, meeting schedules, structure, and budgets
36. Tech Management (updates, repairs, etc.)
37. Professional Learning Communities schedule by content areas, data analysis plans/ review, and schedule
38. All staff forms (trips, supply requests, etc.)
39. School Calendar – (Consider creating a school calendar committee that can be responsible for creating a yearly calendar that includes all the annual events for the school.)
40. Vaccination and physical alerts