Organizational Leadership and Management

The Master Schedule:

Issues and Considerations
By Rick Berry and Jason Carter
Background
The larger of our two small campuses has an enrollment of 249
students, which is up more than 20 percent over last year, and
the highest in more than a dozen years by at least 10 percent. The
campus is ethnically diverse with 41 percent of students Hispanic,
43.5 percent at-risk and 31.3 percent economically disadvantaged.
The district and community have high expectations for our students post-graduation and offer a number of advanced courses in
the form of honors, dual credit and a few AP courses. Students are
responsible for the tuition for dual credit courses. High school staff
is shared with the middle school.
The campus operates on an eight-period day with a short advisory
period between first and second periods. This period is used for organization and class meetings, tutorials, and we set aside at least two
advisories per week only for reading. Athletic periods are scheduled
during fifth (girls athletics), seventh (ninth grade boys and girls)
and eighth (boys athletics). Unless students participate in football
or basketball, they are not scheduled into an athletic period the
board has implemented a policy allowing students to earn partial
credits by participating in spring sports and/or cross country outside
the school day. A significant number of other courses also are offered
only one time in the master schedule. For the sake of simplicity,
I will refer to these courses offered only one time whether dual
credit, athletic, resource classes, etc. as singletons.

instruction. Boys and girls athletics periods are last period (eighth
period). Students can choose to take fall athletics and/or spring
athletics. Our campus offers 36 hours of college/dual-credit courses,
either academic or career and technical courses, paid for by the
district.

Mindset / Considerations

Anyone with master schedule experience likely will have used the
verbs build or create or develop in discussing the process that
results in a master schedule. Any one, or all, of these verbs can accurately describe this process.
In some cases, especially when TEA has given us a new graduation
plan to work with, an artistic flair is necessary when working with
the master schedule. After all, its out with the old and in with the
new, right? It is a difficult task to maintain aspects of the old plan,
to provide students as many options as possible, while re-forming
the master schedule to build in the characteristics of the new plan,
thus providing for 9th graders. The more creative one is in this scenario, the more powerful and rigorous the master schedule will be to
allow all students to reach their post-graduation goals.

The smaller of our two small campuses has an enrollment of 77.

Student demographics are 33.7 percent at-risk and 45.4 percent
economically disadvantaged. Campus staff is also shared between
the high school and junior high school.

In other cases, working with the master schedule may seem more
mundane and workmanlike. The primary work may consist of
tweaking and perfecting small aspects of the plan to benefit certain
groups or classifications of students, or the campus as a whole. In
these years, the process is much more likely to entail consideration
of enrollment sizes by campus and grade-level, section loads, teacher
assignments, teacher certifications and other variables that must be
considered every year to build the best master schedule possible.
Thus, you and your team become developers or builders of the
master schedule in this scenario.

The campus has an eight-period day. One period is designated as

an enrichment period which provides time for accelerated instruction, in-school assistance by teacher or peer-tutoring, and serves as
an excellent time to meet with student groups without interrupting

Regardless of whether the need is for an artist or a builder/developer, the bottom line for campus administrators is to build the best
master schedule possible. And, pray tell, how is best defined? The
best master schedule is one that:

Rick Berry, M.Ed., MBA, attended Sul Ross State University in Alpine, M.Ed. for Professional Mid-Management Certification; Superintendent
Certification at the University of Houston Clear Lake, M.B.A.; and Angelo State University, San Angelo, Texas, B.S., Magna Cum Laude for Texas
Teacher Certification. This school year marks the beginning of his 19th year as a school administrator and 26th year in education. And this will
be his 13th year as principal of Canadian High School, of which he is a proud graduate, class of 1970. He also worked in the private sector for 14
years in the oil & gas industry as a trainer, and in the insurance industry as a project manager and business analyst and manager.
Jason Carter, M.Ed. attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock, M.Ed. for Education Design and Instructional Technology, Mid-management
Certification from Lamar University, Superintendent Certification from Region 14 Education Service Centers Alternative Certification Program;
and West Texas A&M University, Canyon, B.S for Texas Teacher Certification.This school year marks the beginning of his 3rd year as a school
administrator at Roby Junior and Senior High School and 11th year in education.
Texas Association of Secondary School Principals

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Fall 2014 | 41

 Provides every student the opportunity to take the courses they

need, most importantly, but also the courses they want to take;
and
Maximizes the utilization of the instructional resources available
to your campus, whether they be human (teacher and paraprofessional), technology-related, facilities-related or any combination of
resources.

are determining the qualifications of a teacher. I prefer to actually

meet with new staff briefly in August or September to complete
these worksheets in order to ensure accuracy. A related note: make
sure that, as a part of your campus improvement plan, you plan to
become 100 percent compliant and/or maintain that status.

Note that small schools, especially, must start the process of planning
for the next years master schedule in August of the current year. It
is imperative to emphasize to students the need for accuracy in their
course requests, as those requests are the driving force in developing
a cohesive and effective schedule. Be certain to emphasize to students
that because the schedule is built based on course requests, changes
requested in August may or may not be available. Of course, tracking the change requests is also important, as they may shed light on
course combinations which dont work so that you can further perfect
the schedule in the next cycle.

Number of teacher preparations -- You want to limit as much as

you can the number of different courses a teacher teaches, unless the
teacher requests otherwise. (Sometimes you have a superstar that
wants to take on more than the average teacher can or should.)

Sharing staff with other campuses -- This is a probability in any

small district, whether between two secondary campuses or
The Work
between elementary and middle school campuses. Regardless, work
together and be flexible. Make sure to work with other campus
Now that we have looked at the preliminary considerations that
administrators to ensure a fit for all campus master schedules; build
should play into the thought-processes and mind-set, lets look at
the schedules working together. At a minimum, carefully check both
some more practical issues.
schedules to ensure no surprises. Also keep in mind that two heads
really are better than one, so working with another administrator can
Get Input From all Stakeholders
To begin the process requires first determining the campus direction. often result in better solutions to the many problems you must solve
in this endeavor.
Gaining input from teachers, and ultimately students, should be at
the top of the priority list. Small schools are challenged to approach
Based on class sizes (students in each grade), determine how many
the number of course offering options that larger schools can provide, sections will be needed in the core subjects that all students are
but the size of the campus should not be a barrier that hinders crerequired to take. Then consider the instructional resources you have
ativity - use your artistic flair.
and make teacher assignments to cover your needs.

Know Your Staff and Know Them Well

Staffing ultimately makes or breaks your plan. You must take time
and be very diligent to ensure you have the right staff in the right
positions. Not only do all teachers need to be state certified for
the courses you assign them to teach, but compliance with federal
accountability standards requires that your staff, both teachers and
paraprofessionals, are also highly qualified.
Talk to your subject teams, especially the four core, even if only two
teachers are on the team, to get their input. This will result in better
buy-in, make them a part of the process, and lead to better decisions.
This needs to be done before spring break, because if you dont have
enough instructional resources to cover student needs, you will need
to work with other campuses to share teachers, gain permission to
add staff, or otherwise show your artistic flair, once again.
Teacher certifications -- Be aware of what courses a teacher certified by the state to teach. Use of a spreadsheet or a three-ring binder
are two of many methods you may choose to keep this information
handy for reference, or in case of an audit. You can simply print a
paper copy of the teacher certification if you choose a paper record,
or keep the TEA Certificate Lookup page as a quick link on your
computer desktop.

Important Components

Building the actual schedule is very much akin to putting a puzzle

together: several considerations come into play as the components
come together:
Extracurricular periods (athletics, band, choir, fine arts, etc.) -- Be
careful to know your districts expectations for these courses and
periods within the master schedule. Some schools are very particular
about where these periods should occur in the schedule.
It is advisable to check with your superintendent to see if any financial considerations need to be addressed. Some schools use compensatory education funds to help pay for some portion of a teachers
salary.
Singletons -- Now consider all those dual credit, honors, AP, etc.,
courses that are offered only one time. The question is, What period
of the bell schedule? Well, much of this is common sense, so bear
with me. Dont put ninth grade honors classes in the same period
with ninth grade athletics. Dont schedule dual credit English IV in
the same period as dual credit government/economics. Remember to
check class rosters for student overlap; if none, then you obviously
can schedule two singletons in the same period. But know that,
as previously mentioned, just because there is no conflict in May
doesnt mean there wont be one in August when a student requests a
schedule change.

Singletons, part 2 -- Sometimes these courses must be placed at certain times of the day or in specific periods, and frequently they have
different (non-standard) time requirements, especially when they are
Highly qualified status -- Always check to make sure every teacher is taught via distance learning. Scheduling these courses is very imporcertified to teach the subjects you have scheduled. You goal is always tant because they will be requested by upperclassmen. These courses
also need to be made available to as many students as possible so that
100 percent of your staff classified as highly qualified. Once again,
maintaining completed TEA HQ worksheets can save time when you students have every opportunity to become college and career ready.
42 | Fall 2014 Texas Study of Secondary Education

Texas Association of Secondary School Principals

The best master schedule is one that:

Provides every student the opportunity to take the courses they need, most importantly,
but also the courses they want to take; and
Maximizes the utilization of the instructional resources available to your campus, whether they be human
(teacher and paraprofessional), technology-related, facilities-related or any combination of resources.

Typically, it will be impossible to avoid all schedule conflicts with all

students, so try to schedule seniors first, then juniors, etc.
Athletic coaching periods -- How many academic sections are
athletic coaches available to teach, after you plug them into their
coaching periods?
Instructional coaching periods -- If possible, it is advisable to
provide your lead or stronger teachers or instructional leaders with
time in their schedule to allow them to assist, coach or mentor other
teachers who may need help growing into more effective instructors.
Related to the above point, think about giving all your core teams
a common planning period to allow for mentoring, working and
planning together. This is a luxury, but the benefits are obvious, if it
can be worked out.
Typically, a few students will ask to drop athletics or band or both.
It is a good policy to require agreement from parents, the affected
director/coach and principal. With regard to schedule change
requests in general, the shorter the window for changes, the better
- a week or less is recommended, as students tend to stretch to the
limits, whatever the limits are.
House Bill 5 -- The CTE pathways, endorsements and options
within endorsements must be considerations going forward as we all
work to implement House Bill 5 for the benefit of our students.
Etc. -- fill in the blank with specific issues at your campus and
district.

Small Campus

Our small and smaller campuses are very much in sync except for
the question of which comes first, course requests or the master
schedule? On this point we will diverge. The small campus administrator will first obtain data from completed course requests and
then build the master schedule.
Before distributing the course request form to students, work with
all staff to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the course
guides, and then make sure the course request reflects the guide.
Once course requests are received and all data input into the student
management system, look at a report showing roster numbers by
course. This will let you know where you might need multiple
sections of an elective course, if that is possible, or where you have
sections that are too large, etc.

Texas Association of Secondary School Principals

Then, looking ahead to August, as students request schedule changes

in the two weeks before and after the start of the school year, we
need to identify what course combinations dont work and then
determine if we can make adjustments without crashing the system
for the next school year. Take notes I recommend a folder with
just master schedule notes.

Smaller Campus Consideration

Staffing on a very small campus does not always allow for a wide
variety of additional course offerings. It is imperative as a small campus administrator to know what courses are required, what options/
pathways should be available, and what interest your students have.
You can obtain this information through informal class meetings
and more formally with course requests, if you feel the need. It
would also be advisable to gain parental input into course offerings.

Last But Not Least: the Odds and Ends

Using a spreadsheet format is one way to visualize the master

schedule. And if you happen to be a visual learner, utilizing color
in your spreadsheet is one way to easily benefit from this format.
Possibilities are almost endless, but color-coding teacher conference
periods, advanced courses, periods when high school teachers are
teaching middle school courses, compensatory education courses are
all candidates.
Try to get next years master schedule into the hands of faculty and
staff in early May, get their input and make adjustments as warranted.
Try to get student schedules into their hands at least two weeks
before the end of the school year and encourage them to request
changes before summer break.
Now its time to level class sizes as much as possible.
The last work day prior to students reporting, assign someone to go
room-to-room and count student desks and compare those counts
to the largest section in each room over the entire school day; rearrange desks as needed.
With this timeframe for scheduling, you and the entire administrative team can now turn your time and energy to ending the old
school year, taking care of summer responsibilities and preparing for
the new school year. Then the entire process begins again in August.
Good luck, and happy scheduling!

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Fall 2014 | 43