Spring Cleaning in Your ECE Program

If you’re like me, I’m sure you grew up doing some form of spring cleaning at home (I'm actually in the process of tidying up now). As we’re preparing to shift seasons, cleaning and organizing doesn’t just apply to the home, but also to your early childhood program.
 
Spring is a great time to pause and reflect on some areas that may need to be "cleaned" up. Although systems may be in place to keep these tasks on track on a regular basis, the reality is that life happens so check-ins are necessary. Have you even thought about it yet, or are you wondering where to start? Well here are four areas you should be sure to look into sometime soon:
 
1. Children's files: touch base with parents to ensure that medical and emergency contact information is up to date. Allergy season will be here soon and regular outdoor play may start bringing in more incident reports (fingers crossed this won’t happen, but just in case). Make sure you can reach parents when you need to.
 
2. Personnel files: now's a great time to check-in on professional development goals and certifications/credentials pending expiration as your school/fiscal year may soon be ending. There's still time to make arrangements for training and/or renewals to avoid the year-end panic for meeting deadlines.
 
3. Facility/classroom records: double check that files are updated, organized, and stored properly. I had a bad habit of placing drill logs and student observations in the back of a binder until I needed them and the process always ended in a mess! Go ahead and file them properly to ensure nothing has been missed or misplaced.
 
4. Inventory: find out what classroom and program materials have been depleted or are no longer in working condition. Make a plan to discard and replace them to keep your classrooms running smoothly.

What happens when spring is over? Double-check that you have systems in place to track these tasks regularly and schedule checkpoints with to-do lists that will ensure things stay on track.

I’d love to know what’s on your spring cleaning to-do list; share with us in the comments below.