Next Year Scheduling

1. Next Year Scheduling Once a year middle and high schools are faced with the enormous task, the PROJECT, of scheduling all students for the next school year. Taking this project and breaking it out into small, manageable tasks and having a clear understanding of the software capabilities and limitations are key to the project’s success.

2. Step One – Selecting Your Team • Team Members • Team Leader • Counselors • Registrars Having the right team members in place and trained help make your scheduling season successful.

3. Phases of the Project(Breaking the project down into smaller, more manageable tasks) • Course Maintenance (Optional) • Enter Course Recommendations (Optional) • Enter Student Requests • Analyze Student Requests • Enter Master Schedule • Error Scan • Student Scheduler • Finalize Student Schedules • Distribute Student Schedules

4. Building Your Project Plan(Remember to utilize the tools available in the software to assist the Scheduler in building the best possible schedules for your students) • Course Weighting • Course Priority • Course Blocking • Course Sequencing • Hand scheduling individual students with specific needs & locking them into courses • High Schools – CTC Course Placeholders • Scheduling Parameters • Error Scan

5. Administrative Course Catalog Maintenance Some of the optional preliminary scheduling tasks to assist in efficient reporting of student requests includes: • Marking courses as Singletons & Doubletons. • Marking courses to be included on your Simple Tally Report. By marking only the courses you will be offering, the size of the report is significantly decreased and becomes easier to use.

6. Course Catalog Maintenance - Scheduler Related • Schools may opt to put grade and/or gender restrictions on particular courses. • Schools may opt to give courses a semester weight to assist in balancing schedules across semesters. • Schools may opt to give courses a priority to assist in scheduling higher priority courses before all others.

7. Course Maintenance –Scheduler Cont. • Schools may opt to define course sequencing to assist in the placement of courses by requiring: • Pre-requisites • Scheduling courses WITH other courses • Scheduling courses NOT WITH other courses It is important to remember, the Scheduler attempts to follow sequencing. However, if only one of the two courses defined can be scheduled, it will schedule either Course A or Course B.

8. Entering Course Recommendations through TAC • Teachers can enter two (2) Course Recommendations from their TAC Gradebook • Teachers login to Teacher Access Center (TAC) • Click on Recommendations • Select Class or Click on Change to Select a Different Class • Click on Add • Add Recommended Course (s) for each student • Save

9. Loading Teacher Recommendations to Student Requests • Teachers can enter two (2) Course Recommendations from their TAC Gradebook from this years database • Administrative Staff can enter recommendations from eSchoolPlus in Next Year’s database • Click on Menu |Student Schedules | Requests • Enter Recommendations on Course Recommendation Panel • The SIS Team suggests you Review the Recommendations before you Load them • Click on Menu | Student Schedules | Student Scheduler | Course Recommendations • Administrative Staff Load Recommendations to Requests • Login to Next Year Database • Click on Menu | Student Schedules | Student Scheduler | Load Recommended to Requests

10. Enter Student Requests • Requests can be entered for individual students by navigating to the Request Page • Scheduling | Student Schedules | Student | Requests • Requests can be MASS loaded for groups of students using by navigating to the Request Load/Unload/ Erase Page. • Scheduling | Student Schedules | Student Utilities | Request Load/Unload/Erase • This is especially helpful at the middle school level. In one process, multiple course requests can be mass loaded for the same group of students. This is an efficient way to get all requests entered.

11. Coming Soon… Course Requests Entered Through Naviance The SIS Team is currently working with Naviance to enable the upload of Course Requests from Naviance into eSchool. Once this has process has been completed, the SIS Team will provide schools with detailed directions on how to proceed.

12. Analyze Student Requests Pre-Scheduler Reports can be used to assist in analyzing student requests: • Simple Tally • Conflict Matrix • Student Request Summary • Student Request Detail • Pre-Assignment Class Lists

13. Enter Master Schedule Each year middle and high schools can decide whether it would be most efficient to… • Start from scratch and manually re-enter the master schedule for the next year OR • Request the SIS Team copy the current year master schedule into the next year database where modifications can then be made.

14. Error Scan Once the master schedule has been entered, the project reaches a critical milestone. BEFORE running the Student Scheduler, running the ERROR SCAN will identify any issues with the course requests currently in the system and the master schedule you have defined. You can run the Error Scan to check the course catalog, student requests, master schedule, blocking & sequencing. The scan produces a report you can then use to make your corrections. Run the Error Scan before you run the Student Scheduler so you can make any necessary corrections before scheduling students. Taking control at this point in the project and correcting the errors BEFORE running the Scheduler will result in ensuring the most successful scheduling run possible.

15. Student Scheduler Parameters The “Scheduler” process will take the information you have provided in the Scheduling Parameters and based on your student requests and the master schedule you have in place, attempt to build a schedule for each of your students. Scheduling Parameters allow you to give instructions to the software when the scheduler runs. Instructions such as… • Override Seat Counts • Override seat counts the first run • Student Alternates • Balance Courses • Request Sort Order

16. Evaluating the Scheduler run… There are several Post-Scheduler Reports available to assist in evaluating your scheduling run • Student Conflict Analysis • Unscheduled Request Detail • Unscheduled Request Summary

17. Finalize Student Schedules Once the scheduler has been run and student schedules reviewed, schools may opt to make revisions to their Master Schedules or change the Scheduling Parameters and re-run the Scheduler. It is important to remember when making changes, make one change at a timeso you can monitor which change had a positive impact and conversely which change may have had a negative impact. At some point in time, schools will decide the Scheduler has done all it can do and it’s time print out the student schedules, give them to the guidance counselors and begin to make the necessary manual adjustments to ensure all students are fully scheduled.

18. In conclusion… The project to schedule students is one that spans over several months. The process can be completed & tracked most efficiently by breaking it down into smaller tasks… • Course Request Related • Master Schedule Related • Scheduler Related Project planning & management are key; not only having a good plan down on paper but working that plan and monitoring progress thru out.

19. Project ManagementTracking your project from start to finish. • Entering Student Requests or Load Recommendations to Requests • Analyze Request Data • Enter Master Schedule • Error Scan • Corrections PRIOR to Scheduler Run • Student Scheduler • Evaluate, tweak, re-run Scheduler • Schedules to counselors for final review & manual adjustments. • Student Schedules for SY’19 Completed!

20. Project Management Projected Timeline… • Student Requests in by • Simple Tally available by • Master Schedule Completed by • Error Scan run by • Corrections made by • Run Student Scheduler by • Accept scheduler run and begin to make manual adjustments to schedules by • Project Completed by • Deploy Student Schedules