GMail labels to sort student emails

I work with approximately 170 students who are identified for special services. Part of their work through me necessitates ongoing communication. I appreciate the label option in Gmail. Students can email me to first open that communication (as an assignment) and I can, in turn, sort their emails by labeling them according to their graduating year (or grade). From there I have a sorted list. It will be easy to check to see who has not completed the first assignment in my follow-up.

This note helps me realize the many ways labels could sort and identify student emails: by graduation year, grade, names (A-G, H-L, etc), by activity or sport or club. For Journalism classes, they could be sorted as News Team, Sports, Advertising, Photography, etc.

I was thinking I could label them according to their section (Civics 1, WH 2, Sci 3) but your post gave me lots more ideas. THANKS!!

I could use the labels for each class or each assignment.