The summer months never seem to last long enough when you’re a teacher. It’s your time to take a deep breath, and envision how exactly you want your classroom to look next year- virtually and in-person. Though different schools are responding to the pandemic in different ways, everyone is moving towards online learning. Having a back to school teacher checklist and to do list can help make this transition easier.

Because of COVID-19, this year especially is going to look different than usual. We’re here to help with a back to school teacher checklist to completely prepare you for the fall- no matter what your classroom may look like.

Read on for how to prepare for a new school year for teachers.

How to Use This Back to School Teacher Checklist Guide

Whether you are teaching fully virtual, fully in the classroom, or in a blended environment (which is a bit of both), we have resources to help you navigate the school year successfully.  Follow this back to school teacher checklist, and start your first day of school prepared for anything. We’ll cover the following topics in depth-

1. Setting up your classroom

Arrange your room to support healthy and safe classroom operation.

2. Organizing your whiteboard

We cover virtual and in-person whiteboard options for the first day of school for teachers.

3. Checking off resources

Gather the resources you need to organize your curriculum, syllabus, and lessons. 

4. Shopping for materials

Download and purchase the materials you need to start the year on the right foot. Don’t worry- we include many free options here, too!

5. Creating your teacher website

Create your website to include all the information and resources families need for success.

6. Communicating with families

Forming good relationships is key to solid communication year round. 

7. Communicating with administration

Consider what goals and support from administration will set you up for a successful school year.

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Back to School Classroom Setup Checklist for Teachers

Different districts are preparing the return to school this fall in different ways. Many are considering some type of alternating schedule to keep the total number of students in the building down. When thinking about setting up your own classroom, consider the WHO’s released guidelines to keep you and your kids healthy. Use the following first days of school checklist when setting up your classroom.

1. Create a hand washing station

Encourage and demonstrate regular hand washing throughout the day. If you don’t have a sink in your room, set aside an area for hand sanitizer. Also consider allowing students to go to the hallway bathroom to wash their hands regularly during class time.

2. Create a disinfectant station

All frequently touched surfaces should be wiped down regularly. Set up a place in the room where students can get materials to disinfect their own spaces. Introduce procedures for student cleaning that work for your classroom.

3. Increase air flow when able

Keep the windows open and use air conditioning if you can. If the weather is nice and your lesson allows it, consider holding classes outside occasionally.

4. Distance seating if possible

Keep as much distance between desks as your room allows. Avoid having students face each other in clumped groups.

5. Post signs instructing good hygiene practices

Hang signs detailing proper 20 second hand washing, wearing masks, and encouraging students to stay home if they feel sick.

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How to Organize Back to School Whiteboards or Bulletin Boards

Your whiteboard is the first thing students see when they step into your classroom. Not just a space for instruction- it also shares events, student shout-outs, and important reminders. Whether your classroom is fully virtual this year, a blended environment, or mainly in-person, we share ways to think about organizing your whiteboard for the first day.

1. Share a weekly newsletter if you’re fully virtual

When your students first sit down in their seats each morning, the whiteboard is the first thing they check. Capturing this effect in the virtual environment takes some creativity. We highly recommend creating a weekly newsletter to send out to students and families every Monday. Instead of them having to check a static site, like your website or the school’s learning management system, a personal message from you popping into their inbox gives a cheery (and hard to miss) welcome to the week.

Lucidpress is a great tool for creating this. We recommend your newsletter include all of the following items suggested for a whiteboard.

2. Post an updated calendar

Sharing a calendar of upcoming due dates, units, and lessons helps hold students accountable. Time management is a difficult skill for kids, teens, and (let’s be honest) even adults to master. Having students working virtually from their own homes, instead of on a structured bell schedule, adds another layer of difficulty. Constant and frequent reminders of what is expected of them can help them plan their time to get their work done.

For younger students who need additional assistance with time management, create a “parents corner” section of the calendar. Here families can find events, assignment guidelines, and resources for supporting their student’s learning.

3. Shout-out student achievements

Everyone wants to have their hard work recognized, and it’s no secret that positive, verbal reinforcement strengthens student behavior and achievement. Dedicate a space to sharing exceptional student behaviors and academic achievements.

4. Post weekly curriculum standards and objectives

When you share your content objectives, you provide students with a focused purpose, and you guide your own instructional strategies. Communicating these objectives with families keeps them engaged, and enables them to support student learning at home.

5. Wish students a happy birthday

Building a classroom community is different in the virtual environment, and we aren’t able to celebrate birthdays with cupcakes for the class. In some virtual schools, students could go all day without any classmates or teachers even realizing it was their birthday.

Recognize student birthdays every week with a birthday shout out. This also allows students to connect with each other. Students can record and share videos wishing each other happy birthday or you can share a picture of the birthday child. You can also send out a short birthday survey with questions like “How will you celebrate this year?” and “What are you most excited for?” Then, share the responses with the class.

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Back to School Teacher Resources Checklist

Having your resources for the upcoming school year prepared and organized all in one place, will save you time and future headaches. Read on for resources including tools and back to school documents for teachers you can prepare ahead of time.

1. Update your Course Syllabus

Typically, if you’ve taught the same class it’s easiest to just reuse last year’s syllabus. However, if your course is shifting to online, your syllabus needs to be modified to reflect this. It should include-

• A remote sign-off to indicate parents read it. Usually, we have our kids take it home and return it with a parent signature. To make this work for your virtual classroom, just attach a quick Google Form link at the bottom of the syllabus. It just needs to include a place for parents and students to type their names, and check off that they read it.
• Include resources and supporting content. Let families know where to find additional content support. Albert provides a variety of readings and practice activities for all ages and content areas.
• Provide a content overview. Share what standards and content you’ll cover throughout the year, along with required readings and materials. Focus on presenting the content in an engaging way. Include if this course has a state required end of course exam.

2. Create an Online Calendar

Nearly every teacher today needs a planner to keep their head on straight. While paper planners are great, it’s important to also have an updated online calendar. This calendar can be shared with your coworkers, as well as students and families. It’s essential when trying to schedule virtual calls and conferences.

Google Calendar is free, easy to use, has colorful themes for personalization, and links with a large number of other tools (like youcanbookme and Zoom). Calendly is another great, free option that makes scheduling meetings a breeze.

3. Adapt your in-person lessons to virtual ones

Most lessons you’ve already created can be quickly modified to suit the online environment. Prepping them in advance and organizing them in one place will save you a lot of time later in the school year. Here are quick ways to adapt different lessons:

• Record your lectures. You can pre record your lectures with applications like Loom and Screencastify. Share your Powerpoint or presentation screen, and record your voice as you go through it. Both Loom and Screencastify can include an embedded, small shot of yourself, so your students can see your face as you’re talking. 
• Modify discussion activities. In-person discussion activities can be quickly changed to virtual ones with a few softwares. Flipgrid allows students to record themselves replying to your prompt, view each other’s videos, and even post video replies.  NowComment is a platform for you to post articles and specific passages for students to post written discussions.  YOTeach is a tool allowing you to monitor real-time chatting, polls, and drawing.
• Update your projects. If you have a project that is already suited for online learning (like a written essay), upload your instruction sheet to Google Drive and create a shareable link to quickly send to students. If the project was for students to create a paper poster or visual project, they can easily instead make a virtual one with Google Drawings or Prezi. Students can also screen record themselves presenting this project with Loom or Screencastify. By the way, check out our free teaching strategy discovery tool.

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General Back to School Teacher Shopping List

Shopping for an online classroom is different than a traditional one, and involves a lot less time ambling down the aisles of Target. Many of the items on your shopping list will be software downloads. However, there is some essential hardware you should pick up, as well. Whether you’re prepping for your first day teaching high school, middle, or elementary- we’ve got you covered.

1. All Content Areas

• A wireless headset. While you can get by using the internal speaker and microphone in your laptop, we do recommend getting yourself a headset. It blocks out external noises, allowing you to focus on your calls. It also helps reduce the sound of any unwanted, surprise background noises on your end (like a barking dog). Check out these suggestions for finding a teaching headset on a budget.
• Notes to PDF scanner. If you have a paper copy of an assignment or signed form you need to upload as a pdf, there are a number of phone apps that make this easy. Genius Scan and CamScanner are two options that are both free to download and use.
• A Google Voice account. When you’re calling students and parents, you definitely don’t want to be using your personal number. Create a free number in Google Voice to use instead. You can even send texts!
• A Remind101 account. While GoogleVoice is great for individual texts and calls, you can send mass texts to your whole class at once using Remind101. It’s free and easy to use.

2. Math

• Albert. We have hundreds of skill, conceptual and application questions aligned to Common Core, Regents, and TEKS standards. Find out more about how Albert is supporting impacted schools here.
• A graphic tablet. Writing solutions to math problems sometimes just isn’t possible on a keyboard- you need the flexibility of pen and paper. A solution for this is an electronic pen and tablet. Hook it up to your computer and an online whiteboard like BitPaper, and share your screen with students. While these tablets can be pricey, XP-Pen and Huion have options for around $30.
• Desmos is a free online graphing calculator. Not only is it a great resource for students who don’t own one, but it also includes digital activities from 6th to 12th grade.

3. Science

• TedEd offers a number of free engaging and thoughtful videos across all scientific topics. You can even filter by student level.

• The National Science Digital Library. Find everything from games and interactives to assessments and full lessons. Meet your particular needs by searching by resource, subject, and standard. All resources are free, and can link to your Google Classroom, if you have one.
• Mystery Science provides highly interactive STEM lessons targeted for K-5. Their most popular ones are available for free.

4. English Language Arts

• Albert. We have high-interest, evidence driven, practice questions with built in differentiation. They are all standards-aligned, ranging from grades 6-12.
• CommonLit. A free resource library with over 2,000 standards aligned reading passages and assessments for grades 3-12.
• ReadTheory. An online reading comprehension platform that is completely free for teachers.

5. Social Studies

• CNN10 (formerly CNN Student News) is a free, ten minute daily newscast targeted for middle and high schoolers. It’s an engaging way to quickly cover current events, and includes an interactive trivia question.
• NewseumED has free, primary resources for history and social studies. It includes lessons, digital artifacts, edtools and more.

• Seterra offers geography games for K-5 students. They are offering free memberships for schools in response to COVID-19.

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Back to School Teacher Website To Do List

Having your website up and running on the first day of school for teachers is essential. A good website will support student learning, increase communication with families, and ultimately make your life easier. Instead of receiving multiple questions, calls, and emails all related to the same issue, families can go directly to your website to find the help they need. Your website will become an essential resource for them, and a huge time-saver for you. Follow these steps to create a website that works for you.

1. Choose your website platform

The first step to building your website is deciding where you want to host it. No coding experience required! Many sites have easy-to-navigate interfaces if you’re new to creating your own website. Weebly, Wix, and WordPress are all great choices- and best of all, they’re free! Google Classroom and Google Sites are also free, and sync nicely across all other Google web apps.

2. Add your personal information

When creating this section, it’s important to include a picture of yourself, and a brief description of who you are as a person (hobbies, experience, etc.). In the online environment, students and families can feel disconnected from you. This is a great place to let them get to know who you are, and put a face to your name. We recommend recording a brief welcome video of yourself here, too!

3. Include your contact information

If a student can’t remember your email or phone number, they can head to your website to look it up easily. Remember to also post your available hours, so you aren’t getting calls in the middle of your family dinner.

4. Create a resources page

Your website is a great place to house all the supplemental resources and extended activities for your lessons. Include resources to help remediate struggling learners, as well as ones to push the advanced learners further. Albert has an extensive resource library of articles, practice problems, and videos to suit any curriculum and all age groups.

5. Link an updated calendar

The calendar on your website allows families to plan ahead and know what to expect. Share due dates, as well as special events. Here is a video for embedding a GoogleCalender into different sites.

And here is one for how to embed your Calendly booking calendar.

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Back to School Communication with Families To Do List

The first contact with a new family should always be a positive one. Good relationships between parents and teachers is invaluable in supporting student’s learning and well-being throughout the year. Even though you may not be meeting your parents in-person at back to school night, there are a number of virtual, valuable ways to form a strong connection at the beginning of the year.

1. Schedule a welcome call

During the first week of school, you should set up your first phone or video call with both the student and his/her parents to welcome them to your classroom.  This call is essential and incredibly valuable. It allows families to make a personal, individual connection with you.

Avoid doing any actual teaching during this phone call, and focus on making connections and building relationships. Show families you care not just about your student’s academic well-being, but about who your student is as a person. This is the time to ask questions like:

• What are your goals for this school year?
  If you’re students are struggling to set a goal, possible examples include: making all As, turning everything in on time, or joining in a new club. 
•  What do you like to do for fun outside of school?
• What is the best number to reach Mom/Dad? What is the best number to reach the student? Can I text you at these numbers?

Be sure to get their best and most recent contact information while you have them on this phone call.

2. Create an online scheduler

The absolute easiest way to organize phone calls or meetings with students and their families is with an online scheduler tool. Instead of going back and forth via email trying to find a time that works for everyone, you just send out the link of your scheduling page, and they choose a time slot.

YouCanBookMe is a strong tool for this. It links to your personal calendar (like your Google or Outlook calendar), and automatically blocks off time you are unavailable. You set your available days, hours, and can even consistently block off time for your lunch breaks

3. Send out a Welcome Letter

Your welcome letter should be one of the first emails families receive from you. Below is an example of a teacher welcome letter that you can download.

We recommend typing it up and saving it as a PDF attachment- it’s easier to format and share this way than typing it up within the body of an email. Be sure to include the following:

• Set Expectations. Detail attendance requirements, how many lessons/assignments they should complete each day, behavior expectations for any live classes, how often they should call/email teachers. This is also where you should include the percentage breakdown for grades (ex. Tests are worth 30% of your overall grade, Essays are worth 20%, etc.) 
• Give Contact Info. The more places you share this information, the better. Remember to include your available hours.
• Tips for Success. Include what they should do to be successful in your course. Tips for note-taking, how to use resources, and how much time to spend each day on class work.
• How to Complete Daily Assignments. Share how students see what they need to do each day and how to turn it in. If your school is using a Learning Management System, share a video/instructions on how to access it.
• Add Personal Touches. Include a photo of yourself, and briefly share your experiences and some personal information. Add fun and encouraging images or GIFs to get your students excited for the school year.

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Back to School Communication with Administration To Do List 

The back to school checklist for teachers and administration is extensive. It’s best to reach out to your administration before students arrive to prepare yourself for a successful school year. Read on to see the three key topics you want to discuss with them before the first day.

1. Set aside time for collaboration with colleagues

Request your administration set aside time and opportunities for purposeful collaboration specifically related to distance learning experiences and tools. No other educators understand what works for your specific student population quite like the other teachers in your school. Collaborating with them, even just informally, to discuss what is working well for them- and what isn’t- is incredibly valuable. Maybe someone in the science department has already tried out that particular tool you were thinking of using, and has suggestions for how you can implement it.

2. Set professional development goals related to online learning

To help yourself grow as an educator in the online field, set at least one professional development goal related to distance learning. TeachHub provides starting goals for you to consider.

Some possible suggested goals related to distance learning are: implementing 3-5 new technology tools throughout the school year to improve student engagement, implementing 3-5 technology tools for data collection and analysis, differentiate lessons for different learners with online modifications, and organizing online parent conferences monthly.

3. Coordinate support on behavior policies

The two biggest student behavior issues in online education are plagiarism and late work. It’s much easier for students to copy and paste Googled answers at their home computer, than it is while sitting in your classroom. Students can also fall behind more easily. Create a clear plan to address these consequences with students, and ensure you have support from administration on your policies.

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Wrapping Things Up: How to Prepare for a New Year for Teachers

Preparing to return to school in the fall can be overwhelming. Following our back to school checklist will make your first day run smoothly. Be sure to prepare your whiteboard space, gather your essential resources in advance, and use your administration for support. When preparing your virtual curriculum, use Albert for supplementary and assessment resources.

We hope you found this Back to School Teacher Checklist and To Do List helpful. How are you preparing your classroom for the upcoming school year? In the comments below, your favorite tip for starting the school year off on the right foot.

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