As you navigate the first weeks of the school year, you’ll pretty quickly get an idea of whether your current schedule is working. This can be a good time to start thinking about changes you’d like to make, while lessons learned are still fresh.
But changing your schedule and processing students effectively isn’t easy. Your schedulers require three key elements to make the adjustments necessary to best serve your students, faculty, and school as a whole. Keep these in mind when it comes time to create next year’s schedule.
People
Your schedulers require support to ensure they can build and implement the right schedule for your school. A great way to provide this is by creating a scheduling team. The people in this group will become extremely well-versed in your school’s unique needs. They can then collaborate and bounce ideas off of one another to construct a schedule and process that makes sense.
Time
Your schedulers need an extended block of time to hammer out your biggest matrix issues and other scheduling problems. If your team isn’t given large, consecutive blocks of time, scheduling will be far more difficult to accomplish.
This time should remain uninterrupted. Scheduling requires intensive analytical thinking and problem-solving skills. To this end, arrange for the schedulers’ regular duties to be covered by other staff members while they’re working on the school's program. This way, if emergencies do occur, there will be point people already designated to handle them—and the schedulers' concentration and focus can remain undisturbed.
Space
Just as they need uninterrupted time, schedulers also require a dedicated space to work together. This space should have large work tables to share materials, and wall space for large sheets of paper and calendars. You might also consider large monitors or projectors so they can share computer screens.
Given these three things—people, time, and space—your schedulers will be well-equipped to next year's scheduling with ease.
Additional ISM resources:
The Source for Academic Leadership Vol. 16 No. 8 Is Your Schedule Student-Centered?
The Source for Academic Leadership Vol. 14 No. 5 How Do You Know If Your Schedule Is Toxic?
Additional ISM resources for members:
I&P Vol. 41 No. 8 The Annual Strategic Scheduling Meeting
I&P Vol. 44 No. 8 Structure the Schedule Change Committee for Success
