Master scheduling can be difficult because there are so many factors to consider: student conflicts, contractual obligations & limitations, teaming, content area certifications, and general preferences. In the scope of keeping the school and my decisions student centered, I choose to start the scheduling process by looking at potential student conflicts.
A master schedule and a catalog full of courses does little good if students aren’t able to take those courses. For this reason, my master scheduling process takes an early look at singletons. A singleton is any course that meets only once or a limited number of times throughout the day. For example, AP courses, upper level language, advanced vocational or music classes are all singletons, while English 1which meets 12 times during the day is not a singleton. I start by pulling a pre-assignment class list for each singleton and having the department chairs in the building look over the list for potential overlaps. Does a student in AP Calculus BC also tend to take AP Physics? What about our advanced music students, do they also take AP Macro/Micro? If the answer to these questions is yes, then we need to make sure that those courses do not meet in the same periods.
Depending on the size of your school, and the number of singletons in your course catalog, this process can be quiet time consuming. During this phase of scheduling, it is vital to have department chairs and counselors involved to help spot out potential conflicts and patterns in students. Of course, technology can also play a big role in the process as well. By loading pre-assignment class lists into excel and conditionally sorting, you can quickly spot student conflicts. Once your team has thoroughly examined student conflicts and placed singletons, you can begin to build the rest of your schedule.
The key to a functional master schedule is balance. You’ll need to make sure that your classes are fairly evenly balanced across each period, both building wide and in each department. The exception to this rule is lunch periods. Lunch periods will need fewer classes assigned to them because there are fewer students in need of instruction during this time. Be careful to make sure there are enough classes at the beginning and end of the day, many teachers will request a prep period first or last.
When it comes to scheduling teachers, there are several factors to keep in mind that will help them stay at the peak of their instructional capacities. Make an attempt to limit the number of preps a teacher has. One prep may be simple, but a teacher may get bored or find their lessons stale by the end of the day. One the same hand, 4-5 preps is asking a lot out of a staff member. Also watch how often you are asking a teacher to change rooms. Bouncing back and forth between multiple rooms makes it difficult for a teacher to get in a grove or take ownership of their space. Switching rooms can also have a negative impact on students who are seeking out help from a teacher and don’t know where to find them at any given time.
If you can manage all of the factors mentioned so far then you are doing a pretty good job, if you want to make your schedule stand apart even more try tackling these next issues. Teaming. Are you able to group your staff prep/lunch periods together? This is a great way for teachers in the same department or grade level to work collaboratively on lesson planning. Do you have a teacher who coaches? Consider giving him a prep at the end of the day. Certainly this can’t be done for every coach, or no one would teach last period, but there is something to be said for giving coaches last period off. This helps them make a transition from teaching to coaching mode. A head coach with an important competition coming up may start to lose focus by the end of the day and their teaching may suffer.
Once you have established a working schedule it is time to input everything in your student information system/scheduling software and let the computers do their magic. You’ll find that you may need to tweak a few classes, teachers or room numbers to make things work, but modern technology does a great job of placing students into the schedule you’ve built. Be aware though the computers won’t be able to match ever student with a perfect schedule. You’ll still need your counselors to resolve conflicts and hand schedule a few students.
With a little preparation and a little luck, your master schedule should be in good shape for the next school year.
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