Master Schedule Builder

Michael Henderson

Hi everyone,
We are a new school and new to Blackbaud. Question about set up to generate the master schedule:

For Middle School, we have:
4 core subjects, 4 periods a week;
2 Vietnamese language periods a week;
2 Vietnamese history periods a week;
3 specialty areas (Music, Art, PE), 1 period a week.

Right now, we're not restricting any class to any block time (might do that later).

How do we set up our Blocks, and then our Courses and Sections, so that we can generate a master schedule automatically?

Thanks for your ideas!

Scott Chrysler

Michael -


In order to better help you with specifics, some additional information is needed such as the length each period needs to be and the length of your school day. Is each period 1 hour? Do the two Vietnamese courses meet for the same number of hours per week as the 4 core courses requiring the periods those meet to be twice as long as the core periods? Does your school want to distribute class time evenly per period or do you want some periods to be longer so different teaching approaches can be used. For example, all of our courses meet for 4 hours a week, but those 4 hours are distributed across two 50 minute periods and two 70 minute periods.


Maybe I misunderstand the true capabilities of the master schedule builder, but the way we have always done it is that the skeleton of your schedule (schedule outline) must be entered in the system first. You need to create your schedule set (meeting times and rotation), schedule rules, and schedule blocks first to inform the master schedule builder of its parameters. Courses also need to be built out with teachers and rooms entered into the system as these are all variables that the master schedule must take into account to do its thing. Once all of that is in, based on student requests, it attempts to determine when the best meeting times are for each section of each course to minimize conflicts for students and teachers.


Also, are there any other "things" that need to be considered when creating your schedule? Do you have a common lunch time for all or is it staggered? Do you have common blocks of free time that are needed to have morning meetings, homeroom, chapel, or an assembly situation?


I hope that all helps.


Scott

Michael Henderson

Thanks, Scott, all good questions.

We have it about as simple as you can get. Everyone follows the exact same schedule, same breaks, same lunch, 5 days a week. Periods/Blocks are all 1 hour. Students are fixed into their grade/sections (eg G6 S1, G6 S2), and sections align with the course (eg Eng6-1, Eng6-2). So we're concerned mostly with making sure there are no teacher conflicts.

It's a no-brainer if each class were to meet for 4 periods. Where we have found difficulty ‘programming’ the master scheduler, is in the two Vietnamese classes which meet only for 2 periods each, and then throwing in the specials that meet for only 1 period. It's possible that we haven't set up the courses correctly, so that the scheduler understands it only needs to schedule those 1 or 2 times a week, not 4? That's where I'm looking for some help.

It's simple enough that we have scheduled manually this year, and assigned blocks randomly (BB's terminology), rather than automating it through the master scheduler. But it will not remain so in the future, I will need to find a way for the system to do the scheduling, accommodating for a different number of periods per week, depending on the course.

Scott Chrysler

Michael -


I have never had to build a schedule like this, so I may be way off the mark, but this is my initial thinking.


"In theory", Blackbaud taught me that phrase, I would think this is doable if, when you create blocks, you use different types for each need and then build them out in your schedule sets. I am not sure if Blackbaud permits us to create or own block "types" or if we are limited to Academic, Double, Homeroom, Lunch, and Non-Academic that are already hardwired in the system. Even if you are limited to those four, you can "work around" - Blackbaud taught me that phrase, too - by using those to represent something different than what they say they are.


My logic here is the following:


For your Core classes that meet 4 times a week, call them A, B, C, D and the type Academic

For your Vietnamese class that meet twice a week, call them 1 and 2 and the type Double

For your Specialties, call it DOG and the type Non-Academic


For each of the courses on the Schedule tab, be sure the "What teacher can be scheduled?" and "What rooms can this course be scheduled in?" are populated and then for the "When can classes be scheduled for this course?" enter the block type needed for that course. So the Vietnamese classes would have the type Double, Core courses would have type Academic, etc.


Build out your schedule set allotting the times and rotation, and that should work...in theory.


As I said, that is my best estimate. I will graciously defer to anyone who has built out a schedule like this before.


Happy Labor Day.


Scott

Jess Moxsky

Hi Michael! Everyone has given you super advice, I just wanted to chime in and recommend the BlackbaudU training courses on scheduling. Really great resource for wrapping your head around all the moving parts in the schedule maker. Good luck!