Want to know the top 10 high school teacher must haves that will make teaching a breeze for you? Whether you’re a beginning teacher or a veteran, these high school classroom must haves will come in handy. As a high school math teacher of over 20 years, I can attest to these must haves and they help simplify my life so that I can get more done in less time.
From classroom procedures to supplies and materials, these must-haves will make teaching easier for high school teachers. Year after year we are faced with very similar routines, and by May or June whenever the end of the school year is near, we are so burnt out and ready to disconnect that we often fail to reflect about what really worked and what needs tweaking next year so that next school year is even better than this year’s.
You are going to learn about simple must-haves that can instantly transform your classroom into a more productive and engaging learning environment.
After learning about these top 10 high school teacher must-haves, you can confidently walk back to your classroom with at least three clear changes that you will implement immediately to improve your classroom organization.
This post is all about the teacher must haves every high school school teacher should know about.
Best High School Teacher Must Haves.
Teacher Must-Haves for Classroom Organization
1. Tardy System
There’s nothing worse than starting your lesson at the start of the day or block and dealing with students walking in late. Some schools may issue tardy passes, others might rely solely on the teacher marking the student tardy. Despite the system that is in place at your high school, having a tardy system in place in your classroom will make your life so much easier.
One suggestion is to keep a binder with a sign-in sheet for students to fil out when they’re tardy that has their Name, ID #, time entering class, and whether it’s excused or unexcused. If the school issues a tardy pass, have a clip where the student can clip the tardy pass. This way, if you’re in the middle of a lesson or going over homework problems, you don’t have to be interrupted and instead you can grab the binder when you have some down time and fix your attendance.
Once this simple procedure becomes routine, your students will instantly know exactly what to if they are ever late. It’s great for the teacher because it makes the students accountable for their tardiness and you can continue your lesson as planned.
2. Bathroom System
Just as important as having a tardy system is having a bathroom system. Depending on what your school’s expectations are, you can have a generic bathroom pass that is laminated or placed in a plastic cover that the students can take with them when they go to the restroom.
Some teachers use a hand number-system to have students ask permission to go to the restroom. This might work for you. I often find it to be too elementary for my high school seniors, but if you teach freshmen, it might work.
Other teachers have a bathroom policy where students can go three times or four times to the bathroom in a nine-week grading period or semester. I teach math so I’m often going over content with my students whole class or am walking around making sure they’re working on their group assignments so I personally have never had this system in place because it is so hard to keep up with. At the beginning of my career I tried giving students three red passes and when they had to go they used one of the passes, but they ended up just copying the passes on their own (where there’s a will there’s a way, and trust me, they’ll find a way!). So this did not work.
In my class students know that they should not ask to go to the restroom the first 15 or last 15 minutes of class (it’s our school policy). They are also discouraged from using the bathroom when I am in front of the class lecturing, unless it’s an emergency in which case they raise their hand and point to the bathroom pass that’s hanging by the pencil sharpener close to my classroom door.
I have a bathroom sign-out sheet where the students need to record what time they left and when they returned. Again, at the beginning it is important for you to spot check these to make sure students are complying with these procedures. I have found that this has helped me identify students that are constantly asking to go to the restroom and any patterns that may occur.
One thing I do at the beginning of the school year when I ask my students to fill out a student inventory sheet about themselves is to let me know if they have any medical conditions that require that they use the restroom more often than normal. Parents will often fill this out on the open house form that I give them. There have been times when I have a student with a specific medical condition that does in fact require multiple visits to the bathroom. When this is the case, I usually create the student their own pass that they can use and allow them to just go when needed. Again, use your teacher discretion and do your due diligence so that students are not abusing these privileges to just roam the halls.
3. Student Supply Station
It drives me crazy when my students borrow scissors or tape off of my teacher desk because they often don’t put them back in the right place or at all. Then when I need to use them, they’re on someone’s desk in the back of the room or I can’t find them.
So I have a designated student supply station on a small table at the front of my room that has a pencil sharpener, white out, pencils, a tape dispenser, hand sanitizer, lined paper, scissors, staplers, tissues, highlighters and calculators.
I teach honors students, mostly juniors and seniors, and they often don’t take these supplies with them. Everything has my name on it (you can buy a label maker and label EVERYTHING that is yours with your name and room #). But when I notice that supplies are running out (lined paper or pencils), I will ask the class to please volunteer to replenish, especially those that borrowed these items. And generally they’re very good about bringing in some more supplies as they are needed. This helps make my life easier because when I start teaching there’s no excuse as to why they have no paper or pencil to write down notes or get on-task.
Having the supplies on a student table or desk means that they do not touch my school supplies on my desk and so I can count on my things being where I left them for when I need them.
This article contains important school supplies you’ll need in your classroom.
4. Bandaids and First-Aid Items
I can’t even tell you the number of times that I have had students ask me for a bandaid! Whether it’s girls wearing shoes that have hurt their heel, or someone has a minor scrape or bruise, I always make sure that I have bandaids in my class. If you have a school nurse or an athletic trainer that you can count on if anyone gets injured for whatever reason, then bandaids is really all you need.
If you ever do any type of activities such as a field day or a game in the gym, having bandaids on hand will often come in very handy!
5. Clorox Wipes
Even before COVID, wiping down my students’ desks at least once a week was such a great way to keep myself healthy. I usually keep the Clorox Wipes (or Lysol Wipes or any other disinfecting wipes) readily available in the supply student station so that if a student is sick, they wipe down the desk before leaving the class. I make this part of my classroom rules and procedures so that students know as a courtesy to others to clean their desk if they have a cold or a virus.
6. Broom and Dust Pan
If you’re in a school where your custodians do a thorough job of cleaning and disinfecting, kudos to you! I teach in a large public high school of over 3000 students and so the school is really big and we don’t have a large custodial staff that will thoroughly clean every day. Having a broom and dust pan in my room has saved me on numerous occasions when someone drops something on the floor or if my room hasn’t been cleaned well.
Usually I’ll sweep my room on a Monday morning and then wipe the desks down for the week. I usually have a student or two who will get to school early and they’ll often help me organize the desks and volunteer to help me clean.
I do notice a difference when students walk in and the classroom is neat and clean as to when they are not so clean and organized. The students will pick up after themselves more when the room is neat and they focus more on the lesson. It might sound silly, but I do see a correlation between having a neatly organized and clean classroom and student behavior. It could be because a teacher that is structured and holds their students to high standards will often maintain their classroom clean and neatly organized.
7. Classroom Printer
Again, you might have a school where you might already have your own classroom printer, or two or more. But, not everyone does. If you have a place where you can easily print your documents, like a teacher’s lounge that’s close to your classroom, then you are very lucky and might not need your own printer after all.
I work on the second floor of my three-story building and without my own personal printer I would have to go downstairs to print anything that I needed in the office copy machine. It was quite the pain if I ever needed to print a grade verification report or an extra copy of an assignment to have to leave my classroom and go downstairs. Sometimes there was no copy paper so I’ve had to go back upstairs and come down again to get my printout! While it was great exercise, it was quite annoying.
So now I have my own personal printer and it’s awesome! I can print whatever I need when I need it. It’s not rocket science that this is a top essential must-have for any teacher. It’s convenient and a great way to get your printables without ever leaving your classroom.
8. Paper Towels
You might be thinking this high school teacher must-have should be categorized along with the Clorox wipes, but trust me, it needs its own category! Even though more and more students have covered water bottles, disasters are waiting to happen with someone spilling something in your class. Having paper towels readily available will make sure that you are ready for any mishap that could happen.
9. Decluttering Schedule
You need to make the time to declutter your classroom. It could be just once a year, maybe at the beginning or at the end of the year, but having a schedule where you take the time to declutter is a must-have for any high school teacher.
Elementary school teachers often have themed classrooms and put up tons of student work and will have to take everything down before the end of the school year. I know that my own two children have come home with all of their work and books from the year, including their workbooks, art work, and anything else they’ve done.
But in high school, we normally have student file folders that we keep locked away, whether for a year or half a year depending on our school’s policy. We also keep textbooks in our classrooms or in a storage room. But I have walked into many teacher’s classrooms and there is definitely clutter from years and years of teaching.
I myself have just finished getting rid of books that are obsolete, documents and papers that are no longer valid, and other unnecessary items. I had over 15 Spanish-English dictionaries on a bookshelf because of an initiative one year where the administration wanted us to have dictionaries for any ESOL student in our class to use. That was YEARS ago. Students now have cell phones and have access to digital resources.
So if you have been teaching for a while, look around your classroom, your drawers, your files, and see what you can get rid of. It’s just a great feeling to declutter and make your classroom look better.
10. Parent and Student Conference Communication Log
This is a requirement for any teacher to have, but think of how many times you might have addressed a student in person and never really “logged” it in anywhere. It’s important to have a quick way to make a note that you had a personal conversation with a student regarding grades, attendance, behavior or any other issues so that if a problem ever escalates to having a full-blown parent conference, you have documented any and all attempts at addressing the situation.
For parent conferences, my district’s electronic gradebook has a way to keep a digital record of any parent attempt. I always write down the phone number or email address that I used to contact the parent since it’s not always the correct number. I record the time that I called or make a copy of the email message that I sent. I also write down the outcome of the parent conference (whether there was no answer and I left a voice message, or if the parent said they’d talk to their student, etc.).
These high school teacher must-haves are great ways to make your classroom run more smoothly. Think of three must-haves you read about and implement them in your classroom routine. You’ll be glad that you did!
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