[CCHS] Fwd: Preliminary schedules

[Art Dulong]

Good morning,
	Later today we will be giving next year's preliminary schedules to
students. There are several thing I feel I should notify you about. In no
particular order - 

	Any teacher listed for any particular course is subject to change. There
are many reasons for this, but even yesterday I uncovered one staff member
scheduled to teach two courses in the same block.

	Rooms listed are subject to change.

	This year we are working with a new software for the first time. The
software does not use "the same language" as we normally do. One example -
what we call H Block (meaning the last block of the day on Monday,
Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday) the software names G(M,T,R,F). Therefore,
for those who like a puzzle you can feel free to try to fill a schedule
into the blocks it will actually meet. Otherwise, simply be assured that
if it is listed on the schedule it fits into the schedule ... someplace.
Also, we will have the software rewritten between now and next September
to use terminology that is familiar to us.

	Students whose schedules did not fully schedule are being invited to
"arena" where we will try to adjust the problem. My own investigation has
found a number of students who simply signed up for more courses than
would fit into their schedule. In other cases there are singletons that
are in conflict with each other. That is normal and mathematically
impossible to avoid. We have 8 blocks in which to schedule and more than
30 singletons. There are also some issues with a few doubletons. 

	Social Studies for juniors and seniors can not be scheduled as requested.
Almost twice as many students signed up for Senior Psychology as can be
accommodated. Almost 50% more than can be accommodated signed up for World
Religions. The computer program automatically tries to push students into
other social studies classes when this situation exists. My goal was to
try to get everyone who wanted two social studies courses to get two. Some
students requested three. If the computer could schedule i (not likely!) ,
so be it. Otherwise, we will be trying to get people scheduled into two
before we spend any time worrying about students who did not get a third. 

	As always scheduling lunches for some kids is difficult for others
impossible. Students signed up for Jazz Band should not expect to get
lunch on their schedule. Mr. Dentino ensures that all eat, but lunch does
not show up. Students who have over requested should either make a choice
of what to drop or expect to negotiate lunch with next year's teachers (a
common practice done by many students and supported by teachers.) Students
who could be scheduled for at least 4 lunches per week (almost always
around a science lab one day) are not considered to be a problem. Again,
the teachers are used to making accommodations for those kids.

	Probably lots of other things, but I hope you get the message - we'll be
working with kids to get a complete schedule. We have never and do not
deal with individual requests for certain teachers, or a certain time
block for a class, or other individual specific requests. It is not
possible.

	Please be patient. Our goal is for everything to be done by September.
There will be lots undone at the end of June.

Arthur Dulong
Principal, CCHS
(978) 341-2490 x7110