Joe here, I see three options* for reducing the number of items on the left. The problem is not on the left but rather above. If you "hover over" Instructional Services, the drop down list is way too long. It "drops" off the webpage it's so long. We need to correct this.
Option 1: We use the tabs portlet to reduce the number of items from the left and above. The tabs can be anything we want like documents (PDFs and what not), external links (like to the VDOE), internal links, etc.
Option 2: We hide all PDFs and external links from the left and above AND we create quick links on the right for those PDFs and external links.
Option 3: OR, the opposite. We hide all internal pages from the left and above AND create quick links on the right.
*There are even more ways to do this, these are 3 ideas I have - JG