Guidance Counselors - how do you schedual students' classes?

Question

i've heard some do it "by hand" and it takes a really long time (obviously). but i'm pretty sure mine, in high school used a computer.

??

Answer 1

Usually the principal makes what is called the "master schedule" which shows which classes are available which periods.  The counselors take your registration forms and enter your class requests into the computer.  Most students can be scheduled by the computer, but sometimes, especially if you have several classes that are only offered one time during the day, there are conflicts which the counselor must try to resolve.  Sometimes they can be fixed by giving you a different order of classes second semester than you had first semester.  Other times you may have to have a different elective.  Once every student has a schedule, counselors go back and try to balance class sizes because one class might have 40 students scheduled in it and another has 10, so they try to even it out by making schedule changes by hand.  That is the part that takes so long because they have to look at each student in the class and see if it is possible to change their schedule without unbalancing another teacher's classes.

Hope that answers your question.

Answer 2

It is done by computers but I'm pretty sure the guidance counselors don't do it, they may fix it after they are made but I'm pretty sure schedules is a duty for an asst. principal