Scheduling Process

I keep getting random questions from students about next year's schedule.  It makes sense that you'd have questions since you submitted your requests in February and so I thought it might be helpful if I give you a quick overview of the scheduling process. (I am saying quick because it is actually boring and is known to cause massive headaches for those trying to put it all together and make it work for every student.)

After all of you entered your registration requests in the computer system, I started the process of meeting with you and reviewing your course selections. All of the course requests were then finalized and officially given to the administration as the "final" registration requests.

The administrators began working with the department chairs for each subject to determine the total number of sections of each class (for example English 1's) needed to meet the demand. They will then work with computer services to create a schedule that will create the smallest number of conflicts possible. This is a MUCH bigger challenge than most people would imagine. For example, if a class like AP Computer Science is only offered 1 time in the day, then they have to figure out what students want to take that class and try to make sure that the time of day selected to offer the course will not conflict with any other classes - especially any other classes that are only offered once in a day (like Band, Choir, or AP Foreign Languages).

The administration (principal and assistant principals) will look at the numbers for all of the courses selected to determine what, if any, courses do not have enough students signed up to be able to offer the class. After they figure this out they will provide that information back to the counselors with a list of students impacted and we will work with those students and their alternates list to find a suitable replacement course.  This is the area where we are right now - administrators are determining which sections can't run and how many sections of each class will be offered.

Eventually they will create a schedule and "lock" it in place.  (Hopefully this will take place before the year ends, but it is always very close to the end of the school year or even into the summer.) When that happens they will then come back to the counselors with a list of all of the kids with conflicts in their schedules. In some cases, we are able to make minor adjustments - move a few classes around and make the schedule work. In other instances, we will have to work with the student to make tough decisions about what classes they do or do not want to take and use the alternates to find other courses that would work and still meet requirements toward graduation.

And that's it - we will ultimately get the schedule set just how we want it and hopefully all of you will pass all of your classes 2nd semester so that we don't have to go back and add anything into your schedule or change classes that you no longer meet the pre-requisites for, but all of those types of changes will happen after the final grades at the end of the year.

I hope that helps you to understand what is going on with the scheduling and registration process. It is a long and tedious process and I appreciate your patience with understanding that no, I truly have no clue how your schedule will look next year.