My teacher binder, AKA my lifeline during the school year, contains the most important documents for my day-to-day work:
- attendance rosters
- student grade sheets
- paperwork about students’ learning needs
- students’ “All About Me” forms from the beginning of the school year
- logs for student behavior and parent contact
- work for absent students
- school forms
My tips for organization:
1) Use tabbed dividers to separate the papers for each class.
On the back of the divider, I attach paperclips to the top and bottom to hold extra copies of assignments for students who are absent from class. That way, when I flip open the section for the class to take attendance, the assignment is readily available for me to hand to the student when he or she returns. 
Because I teach in 3 different classrooms, it’s easier for me to hold onto handouts for my students instead of setting up a separate station in each classroom where students can go to pick up their missed work.
2) Within each class section, use brightly colored paper to divide the contents further.
Each class section in my binder is ordered:
- Students’ attendance and grade sheets printed double-sided (FREE in my store)
- Colored paper divider
- Paperwork on students’ learning needs (IEPs and 504s)
- Colored paper divider
- Students’ “All About Me” sheets from their class syllabus
- Colored paper divider
- Other, for example: If a student struggles with making appropriate behavior choices, I simply jot down the date and a few notes on a piece of paper (a description of the behavior and consequences, including parent communication, if applicable), and this paper is filed with the student’s class section.