High School Master Schedule
Design thinking process
Role: As the High School Principal, I facilitated weekly collaborative instructional improvement science teams with teachers, where we reflected on practice and conducted in-depth data analysis to identify inequitable practices related to the Master Schedule.
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Responsibilities: Conducting student surveys, staff empathy interviews, root cause analysis, equity audit, needs assessment, establishing project timelines, and systemically testing changes through PDSA cycles. Through these efforts, we fostered a culture of continuous improvement and achieved positive outcomes for student success and overall education excellence.
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Research Methods: Data analysis, Needs assessment, Teacher interviews, Student surveys, Questionnaires, Concept mapping, Focus groups, Wordclouds, Affinity diagramming, Fishbone diagramming, Prototyping, A/B testing, PDSA cycle, Stakeholder walkthroughs, Rose thorn bud.
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Company Overview: Oregon Virtual Academy is an online K-12 public charter school. The school community comprises students and staff from all over Oregon.
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What is a Master Schedule?
A Master Schedule is a plan that determines when and where each class will happen and which students and teachers will be in each class. Creating a High School Master schedule is a complex task; the responsibility usually falls on the Principal or Associate Principal. Typically, a Master Schedule can take several hundred to a thousand hours on the process, depending on several factors, including the size of the school, courses offered, the complexity of the schedule, and the availability of resources.
The Challenge
Master Schedules are one of the biggest drivers for achieving student equity, and they serve as a template of communication to the entire learning community about the educational institution's values and top priorities.
The Goal
Collect and analyze student and teacher feedback to identify areas for improvement and address paint points while prioritizing students' needs and preferences throughout the development of the new Master Schedule.
UNDERSTANDING THE STUDENTS AND STAFF
In my first week as the High School Principal, I was already hearing from staff, students, and parents about how unhappy everyone was with the current Master Schedule. Therefore, I created an Instructional Leadership team aka. "The Cabinet" to assemble each week to improve the Master Schedule. In total, there were 16 members, and within that total, 12 of them represented different departments at the school.
From Februrary 26th to March 28th, The Cabinet sought to clearly define the problem and opportunities for improvement based on user insight and data. At the second meeting, each Cabinet member was given two minutes to write as many answers to the question "What is working for students?" and then two minutes to write as many answers to the question "What is not working for students?" Check out their responses below.
What is working for students?
What is NOT working for students?
Likewise, each Cabinet member was given two minutes to write as many answers to the question "What is working for teachers?" and then two minutes to write as many answers to the question "What is not working for teachers?"
What is working for teachers?
What is NOT working for teachers?
After the brainstorming activity, The Cabinet participated in a jigsaw activity, dividing into two groups. One group focused on the responses to the student-centered questions, and the other focused on the teacher-centered questions. Both groups spent 15 minutes reviewing all responses and identifying a few common themes from the responses, then spent 15 minutes discussing all the identified themes. After the jigsaw activity, The Cabinet came back together to collaboratively organize all feedback into a Fishbone diagram, allowing us to explore the root causes further.
Displaying the common themes into a fishbone diagram
After the Fishbone diagram activity, The Cabinet collaboratively made a student survey that was sent out to all students to ask for their input on the current Master Schedule and changes that they would like to see. Each department representative was tasked to conduct empathy interviews with their departments and then share the Fishbone diagram with them.
The Cabinet was asked to identify common themes from the student survey
REFINING THE WORK WITH STAFF
Using the feedback from their departments and data collected from the student survey, The Cabinet set Master Scheduling priorities by sorting the themes into two categories: essential or important priority.
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Attendance options for students
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Student engagement options
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Advanced coursework options
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Schedule time conflicts/ Overlapping classes
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Four live class sessions and one support day
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Start earlier and end earlier
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Block Schedule for four days
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Common academic support times
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Independent study options for students
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Quarter cut-offs within Semester
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Common lunchtime
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Class Oversize
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Collaboration & Training (Lack of regular, systematic collaboration with co-teachers from other departments, schools)
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Avoid back-to-back classes
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PBL courses need to be 1 hour
Identified essential priorities
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40 1.0 FTE High School Teachers
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128 classes to schedule
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992 High School Students
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Every full-time student needs 990 seat hours per year
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Class size is between 15 to 60 students
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Enrollment projections for each grade level
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Classes students want and need to take
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Courses teachers want and need to teach
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Balanced class sizes and teacher workload
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Balanced ratio of students in class with special needs, English Learners, and those in gifted programs.
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Do all students have access to rigorous, high-quality teaching and learning?
Keep in mind
The Cabinet presented the identified essential priorities to their departments and then created a skeleton master schedule while considering class sizes, teacher experience, and, most importantly, student needs. Check out some of their prototypes below.
Each department representative was given five minutes to present their department's prototype of the Master Schedule and five minutes to answer any clarifying questions. While they presented, members of The Cabinet were required to fill out a presentation feedback form for each presentation. At the end of all 12 presentations, each Cabinet member voted on their top two drafts of the Master Schedule. Once the top two drafts of the Master Schedule were selected, The Cabinet collaboratively made a survey to be sent out to all teachers to ask for their input on the top two drafts of the Master Schedule. Below is a snip-it from the April 26, 2021, weekly newsletter about The Cabinet's work progress.
A little blurb in the High School Newsletter about The Cabinet's work
At our last meeting, The Cabinet reviewed the responses from the teacher's survey and discussed any pending concerns about the final draft of the Master Schedule. Final edits were made to the Master Schedule, and then I presented the final version to my fellow Senior Admin team, the Head of Schools, and the School Board.
Final Version of Master Schedule
Course offerings were chosen based on student interests, needs, and teacher certifications
GOING FORWARD
Our collective goal when we first started working on the Master Schedule was to create a schedule that was student-centered, promoted equity, and honored all voices/stakeholders in the process. I am extremely proud of all The Cabinet members' work put into the improvement science process to ensure positive systematic changes for all students and staff. Improvement science practices help educational leaders like myself leave a positive and long-lasting legacy.
NEXT STEPS
1
Create a more intuitive way for students to access the Master Schedule.
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Continue to meet with The Cabinet to tackle other instructional improvement tasks.
3
Survey students and teachers in the fall to get their feedback on the new Master Schedule.
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