Organizing Records

How to Organize Your Child’s Records

Organizing records is a great place to get started. As a parent of a child with a disability, you are quickly coming to the realization that there is one thing the system does do well is to generate a mountain of paperwork. Getting, organizing and maintaining the records you need is a vital part of understanding your child’s needs and being prepared to help them with their educational needs.

Here is a simple outline of a step by step system for organizing records and getting paperwork under control:

1. Gather information. The best plan to start organizing records start with making a master list of all individuals, agencies, and providers that may have information or records about your child. Be sure to include names, titles, locations and full contact information, including email, if possible.

2. Request your child’s records by sending a letter to the individuals, agencies and service providers on your list. Be sure to keep photocopies of all letters in your file.

3. Request your child’s educational records. Write a letter to the school(s) requesting a complete copy of your child’s entire cumulative file and confidential file – omitting nothing. You want copies of all evaluations, records, and correspondence, and other documents the school has about your child.

4. Organizing records into a Master File. Keep this Master File contained in a 3-ring binder, or notebook. You will need a big one to allow for expansion! Get everything in place and then sort out the documents by year.

5. Date all documents. With a soft lead pencil, lightly write the date of document in the lower right hand corner of the first page (for example 09/17/06).

6. If you find duplicates, just pick the best copy and put that one in your Master File – put the other one away in a box in case you need it someday.

7. Hole-punch and file all the dated documents in your large 3 ring binder. Put them in chronological order with the oldest on top – newest documents go to the back. Be sure to file by date.

8. Make a “List of Documents” by date, author, type and significance of the document and put that in the front of your Master File. This is your quick reference – like a table of contents.

9. Do not write or highlight on these documents – they are your “originals”. Do not give them away to anyone! Make a copy, but do not give yours away.

10. Once you have your Master File created and organized, it will be fairly easy to keep it updated and current, but do be sure that you do.

This is a simple, elegant, and parent-tested way to organize your child’s records. This will give you some place to start, as I am sure you will come up with what works best for you. The important points to keep in mind is putting it all together in a way that makes it easy to find whatever you need quickly, and always make copies – never give yours away! Put everything in writing, and put a copy in your Master File. You will be glad you did.

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