Added 6/12/24
- Added the ability to run the Master Class Builder separately by school.

The Schedule Builder requires a basic set of information before it can adequately build a master.  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• 1. Student Requests
• 2a. Periods
• 3. Curriculum Setup

1. Student Requests

The Schedule Builder constructs a master using Student Requests as its primary source of information when determining where to place sections.

Most; if not all next year student requests should be entered before running the Schedule Builder. 

There are some considerations to be made when entering requests.

Rotating Schedules and Lunch

If your school is going to be using a rotating schedule (For example: 6 out of 8 periods meet per day over a 4 day cycle; where each day those 6 periods rotate).   It is important to NOT add requests for lunch.   Genesis deals with lunches for rotating schedules; after the courses are scheduled.   The resulting student schedule will not have lunch listed in it; as the rotating schedule itself determines when students have lunch.

Standard and Block Schedules

In a standard or block schedule; you will create requests for your lunch course.   It is important that the lunch course is flagged as lunch on the curriculum.

2a. Periods

Setting up the periods in your school is crucial to success with the Schedule Builder.

If your school uses rotating periods; please refer to this document instead: 2b. Rotating Periods

How Schedule Builder uses Periods

Schedule Builder does NOT use the start time, end time time or minutes of a period to determine conflicts.

Period Slots

The Schedule Builder uses the following fields to determine conflicts for periods:

• From Period (slot)
• Thru Period (slot)
• Slots

In the above example; the following statements are true:

• Print Period 1 and 2 do not conflict (1-4 and 5-8)
• Print Period 3AL and 3B do conflict (9-9 overlaps with 9-10)

Designing a Period Scheme

The above screen shot represents this period scheme: 4 Periods with 3 Lunches

The following link has a list of sample period schemes that you can use as a reference when building yours: Sample Period Schemes

Period Fields

From and Thru Period (Slot)

The from and thru period slot that this period meets.   These values combined must be unique within the school.   For example; you cannot create a period 1 (1-1) and a period 2 (1-1).

Print Period

This is the description/name of the from and thru period slot that you are creating.   For example:  5 (14-15) (Period 5 which represents slots 14 and 15)

Print Seq

The order in which this period would be displayed when listed with other periods.  This is also the order in which the Schedule Builder looks for a free period.

Start time and End Time

The start and end time for this period (12:00pm to 12:40pm).   The Schedule Builder DOES NOT use these fields to look for conflicts (see above).   These fields are used however by various parts of Genesis to determine where a student is at a given time (The parent module and student information bar for example).

Used in Master Class Schedule Builder

If this option is unchecked; the Schedule Builder will never schedule a section into this period.  

This option is generally unchecked for periods such as homeroom; or after school activities.

Used in Scheduling

This option is used in both student schedulers (Mass and Individual) and various reports in Genesis.  

If you have "Used in Master Class Scheduler Builder" checked; this option should also be checked.

Schedule Builder does not look at this flag when constructing a master.

Used in Class Attendance

This allows this period to be used by the Class Attendance module. 

Schedule Builder does not look at this flag when constructing a master.

Class Attendance Multiplier

This affects the calculation used in the Class Attendance Module when determining how many absences there are for this period.

Schedule Builder does not look at this field when constructing a master.

Homeroom

Lets various screens in Genesis know that this is a homeroom.

Schedule Builder does not look at this flag when constructing a master.

Lunch is offered during this period

Courses that are flagged as lunch will only be allowed to be scheduled during periods with this option checked.  Regular courses can always be scheduled into periods flagged as lunch.

Link to Print Period

This can link to print periods (that are not consecutive) together; to form a period of a larger slot size.  

Here is an example scenario when this option would be used:

• A course meets 80 minutes
• Courses are assumed to be 2 slots long (Period 1 = 1-2; Period 2 = 3-4 etc...)
• At the 40 minute mark of the period students step out and go to lunch for 30 minutes
• At the end of lunch; those students would return to this course for the remaining 40 minutes.

This feature would let you create a situation like this:

• Period 2 = 3-4  (A normal 80 minute period)
• Period 2A (12:00pm-12:40pm 40 mins) = 3-3  Linked to Period 2B (1:20pm - 2:20pm 40 mins)  5-5
• Period 2L (12:40pm-1:10pm 30 mins lunch 4-4)

A student could either have period 2 for 80 minutes; or period 2a (40 mins) then lunch (2L) and then 2B (Back to the same class)

When this option is used; the schedule builder will create a section with 2 subsections; one will have period 2A and the other 2B.  

The student would then most likely get scheduled into lunch that meets just for period 2L.

An example of period scheme that uses this feature is: 4 Periods with 3 Lunches

3. Curriculum Setup

The Schedule Builder needs the following information about each course in order to build the master.  

Consider all of the fields mandatory unless otherwise stated.

This information is entered on the Next Year Scheduling.Curriculum set of screens.

Active Course

The schedule builder only works with courses that have the active field checked.   All other course are completely ignored by the Schedule Builder.

Course Length

This field tells the Schedule Builder how long a course is.  

Available options are:

Default Seats

The schedule uses the number in this field to determine how many students can fit into each section of this course.  Other rules or options may override this value.  (For example; inclusion courses will automatically adjust this number when scheduled against a section of this course.  More on this later)

Number of Primary Requests (Read Only)

This field shows how many students have requested this course.

Estimated Sections Needed (Read Only)

This is the number of sections that schedule builder will create for this course (unless overridden).  This field uses the number of primary requests and default seats fields to calculate the number.   This number is calculated on the fly and is not stored in the database; thus it is always accurate.  For example; if default seats were set to 25; and there were 75 requests for this course; the Schedule Builder will create 3 sections of this course.  If there are no requests for this course; the Schedule Builder can be forced to create sections for it by setting the Create this many sections field.

Override Sections Needed (Optional)

Use this field to override the number of sections to be created that were determined in the previous field.  

Number of Cycle Days for Course

This is how many days out of the cycle this course meets.  For example:  If the school has an AB cycle; a value of 1 means that sections of this course can meet on either only A days, or only B days.

If your school uses  Rotating Periods; this value should always be set to the full number of days in the cycle. 

*Rotating Periods Example: (*6 out of 8 over 4 days; everyone has lunch after 3rd period)

• The school has an ABCD cycle
• 8 'periods' are defined in a students schedule
• On any given day; 6 of those 8 meet.
• Day A: Periods 1,2,3,(Lunch), 6,7,8
• Day B: Periods 4,1,2,(Lunch),5,6,7
• Day C: Periods 3,4,1,(Lunch),8,5,6
• Day D: Periods 2,3,4,(Lunch),7,8,5

With the rotating schedule in place; each course actually meets 3 out of the 4 days.   This rotation is defined AFTER the schedule is constructed.  

It is very important that for the course; you set the Number of Cycle Days for Course to 4 and not 3 (Even though 3 seems to be the logical choice). 

This is because the days that drop out are defined on the Rotating Periods screen after the master is constructed; and not during construction of the master.

Meets this many period slots per day

This tells the builder how many period slots a section of this course takes.  If 1 period slot were equal to 1 period (40 minutes for example); a double period course would have this value set to 2.

The Schedule Builder will only schedule sections into periods that have the same amount of slots as the course.

This Phys ED will drop 1 quarter for this course (Optional)

This field (and the next) is used for the following scenario:

• The school is not using rotating periods
• The Phys Ed course meets for the full year; but for only 3 quarters.
• The quarter it does not meet; health (or another quarter course) will meet at the same time for that quarter

Choose the health (or other quarter course) that will be scheduled during the dropout quarter of this course.

Drop out this quarter (Optional)

The default value for this field is Let Schedule Builder Decide.   You can also choose a specific quarter that will be dropped out for this course.

This useful if for example you have a Phy. Ed course for 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade; and you know in advance that health will be available in Q1 for 9, Q2 for 10, Q3 for 11 and Q4 for 12th graders.

Inclusion Course Link (Optional)

This field is used for setting up In Class Support courses. 

One (and only one) of the courses must be flagged Spec Ed Course.

When saving this field; the screen will automatically set up the other course to point back to this course.

This will create a 2 way link between two courses.  

Example Result:

• ENG10 is the main English 10 course; with 10 sections to be created
• ENG10ICS is the ICS for English 10; with 2 sections to be created
• The schedule builder will construct ENG10 first
• ENG10ICS will then create 2 sections that meet the same time and room as the best 2 ENG10 sections
• The seats will be adjusted accordingly on the ENG10 sections that were linked to