Keep these documents handy

Maintaining clear, well-documented professional records is as important as maintaining your grade book and lesson plans. Want a fair evaluation? Proper placement on the salary schedule? A fair solution to misunderstandings or disputes? The records in the following list can help you answer questions and resolve conflicts.

Teaching licenses and/or certificates
Transcripts of credits and degrees
Record of inservice or advanced academic credit
Letters of appointment or hire
Employee contracts, including any supplemental contracts
Record of hire from the employer's official minutes (board meeting minutes)
Proof of union membership
Record of accumulated sick leave and other personal leave days
Copies of current and past assignment schedules
Log of tax-deductible job-related expenses
Copies of insurance policies
Information from the retirement system
Documentation of commendations, awards and honors
Employee salary or wage schedule; pay stubs
Performance evaluations and your responses
Letters of praise or reprimand
Correspondence with parents and students
Correspondence with administrators/supervisors and department heads
District policies on student discipline, suspension, expulsion, corporal punishment
Record of incidents involving student discipline, violence or other disruptive student behavior, including date and witnesses involved
Record of assaults, violence or workplace thefts
Written personal reconstruction of events surrounding student injuries
School calendar
Fringe benefit information; records on insurance claims

January 19, 2009