generating student schedules by quarter

Does anyone generate schedules 1 quarter at a time?  If you do, why do you do it this way and what are the steps or tips to watch for.  Would we have to enter course requests for each quarter or could we keep the requests in there that are for the course as a 4 term class? Can you change the schedule set for quarter 3 and 4 if necessary to acomodate for fewer or more sections if in person classes needed to be diluted?


We are talking through all the possibilities and one is to begin with a 8 period schedule for Q1 and Q2. The 8th period would be a 45min "break" class to get kids out of the classroom and into a common area for a mental "time out". Class number target and max would be lowered to 19.


If possible and state restrictions are lifted, return to our regular 7 period schedule with target and max numbers set back to 21-24 in Q3 and Q5 (fingers crossed) without the "break" class.  


We are trying to avoid switching to semester years and terms, resulting in having to touch every grading setup, gpa calculation, award calc and report card / transcript that is set up currently for the past 4 years (and very fine tuned) :-) .