Scheduling
As Principal of Pinellas Preparatory Academy, one of the more difficult annual tasks was the development of the Master Schedule. The school uses a unique scheduling model, whereas students are assigned to homeroom groups, which stay together for the majority of their day. Each year we provide different variations to the schedule to try to stay relevant and provide new opportunities for students.
The process for developing the master schedule is by committee. Each year the committee gets together to develop priorities by which the schedule will be created (i.e. elementary students should have uninterrupted blocks, language arts and math for advanced students should be in the morning, not the afternoon, etc.). From there, I develop a draft schedule and present it to the committee for discussion and revision.
Below are samples of the master schedules I have developed:
We are currently developing the 2010-11 Master Schedule. The priorities that have been set by the committee are significantly different than they have been in the past. This year, we are trying to incorporate some block scheduling, a wheel, and the opportunity for students to be more heterogrenous, moving slightly away from our “homeroom” structure of the past. Even though this schedule is much more complex, and different at each quarter, it was still developed by hand.