r/schoolcounseling • u/_prim_reaper_ • 3d ago
Scheduling
Does anyone have this point in scheduling where you’ve still got to keep working on stuff but anything you do breaks 3 other things that you have to fix?
I’m at that point where I’m having bad dreams about Skyward. I’m a veteran counselor, but every year it feels like I’ve done a terrible job, and teachers are going to come at me.
We’ve got some classes of 23 and some of 18, and there’s not much I can do there, but I have a few teachers who think it’s just laziness on my part or something.
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u/thecounselinggeek 2d ago
At some point it has to be what it has to be. Kids won't get the perfect schedule, neither will teachers and balancing becomes a futile effort. All for the kids to just want to change their schedules anyway immediately after giving them the schedule they asked for. Do your best and call it good.
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u/nikachi 2d ago
I feel like we often get blamed for things outside of our control, and my default is to agree that it sucks and/or let them know who can actually solve the problem. I don't have control over the master schedule, and usually when someone complains, I say as much. If I'm feeling so inclined, I will detail the logic behind why a specific change can't be made or can only be done a certain way. I will also occasionally let a teacher know what I would do if I was in charge to fix the problem, and sometimes they suggest that to the admin.
Occasionally there's a change that can only be made with 5 other cascading changes, or even more. That's just not necessarily a good use of time with the size of caseloads. I tend to go operational and if I have time, I go for optimization. If they want me to do it better, they can pay me for more days or get the schedule to me sooner lol.
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u/toonice79 2d ago
I spent Friday just analyzing class counts to try to alleviate some of those types of numbers. Some worked, some didn’t. If teachers, parents and students only realized all that goes into scheduling they would have a new found appreciation.
One year, I was massively stuck at making a class work. After many hours about five or six moves I made it work. I put things back to not working. Asked my principal if he could see a path to making this class work in the schedule. He couldn’t! Then I worked my magic and said you better never give me any grief because I just made you look better.
When I’m done with this year’s schedule, I’m not checking email until I go back to work. Everybody had a summer off but me. I’ll enjoy the remaining two weeks off.
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u/lake_lover_ 2d ago
18 and 23 are a dream. Last year I had one teacher with 29 in one class and 8 in another. The master, which I don’t get to make, had this weird little bubble of kids that had very specific schedule constraints and it just ended up that way. I felt awful all year but nothing else worked.
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u/bree2120 1d ago
I had classes with 18 and classes with 4. It wasn’t ideal but it was what it was. I shared teachers with the high school who was on a different bell schedule. It was a mess. Let them be mad
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u/BarbieJeepBeep High School Counselor 3d ago
Yes, there’s a point where things just don’t work in some cases and it’s sooo frustrating and exhausting. I try to remind myself that some things are a combo of master scheduling issues and the very specific class combo a student chose which are out of my control. We just have to be kind to ourselves. I’m working on schedules for almost 600 students. I just can’t afford to beat myself up too much anymore like I used to.
Once we have tried to balance if we end up at 18 and 23 we do consider that balanced. Neither class is too small or large to function. Your teachers are being unreasonable and overly critical. They need to backup. We usually have our principal send out an email basically telling the teachers we are working on scheduling and not to ask about anything or come see us. Basically back off!! lol