Overview
The Elementary Scheduler can be used to automatically schedule your elementary students and evenly distribute them by, grade level, gender, discipline, and test data.
First, check with your MIS staff to make sure the scheduler settings have been set in the new school year.
When to Use the Elementary Scheduler
The elementary scheduler will schedule all of your elementary students. If you are hand scheduling some students but also using the elementary scheduler, there is no way to automatically account for this even when you lock those individual student schedules.
For this reason, we recommend doing all of your manual hand scheduling after running the elementary scheduler. Otherwise, you will need to manually take each of those kids out of the sections before hitting schedule in the elementary scheduler or hand schedule/manually fix them after.
System Preferences (MIS Only)
Select the State Math and State ELA Test that will be considered when using the Elementary Scheduler. One or multiple tests can be selected. The Elementary Scheduler will look at the most recent test administration for each student across all of the selected tests.
Select the Achievement Level Type for the state math and ELA tests selected above. The Achievement Level Type must be the same for all the tests selected.
Lock Scheduler
Here you can enter the date you would like to Lock the Elementary Scheduler.
Screen Description
To begin navigate to Scheduling > Elementary Scheduler.
Each grade level is its own tab across the top of the screen, as each grade level is scheduled separately. If there are no students in a grade level, the tab will not display.
The Class column displays the teachers of the homeroom/parent sections.
The system knows which teachers teach each grade level by the subject bucket their courses are saved under in Courses and Sections.
The pull-down beneath the grade level tabs allows you to select which factors to consider when distributing students.
The Gender, Behavior, ELA Scores (Level), and Math Scores (Level) options are selected by default. The ESE, ELL,504, and Gifted options can be selected, if desired. The selected options will display as columns.
The Gender column displays the total number of girls (fuchsia) and the total number of boys (teal).
In our screenshot, they are all listed as unassigned because they have not been scheduled yet.
Note** All grade levels will have the Gender column header selected by default.
The Behavior column is based on the total number of processed admin referrals plus minor infraction referrals (if used) district-wide.
- Green represents no referrals
- Yellow represents 1-2 referrals
- Red represents 3 or more referrals
The ELA Scores (Level) and Math Scores (Level) columns are based on the most recent ELA/MA achievement levels found in the students’ Test History and the test selected in the System Preferences setup.
This is based on the previous school year from what is selected in the school year pull-down.
- Green represents level 4 or 5 on the most recent ELA/MA test.
- Khaki represents level 3 on the most recent ELA/MA test.
- Yellow represents level 2 on the most recent ELA/MA test.
- Red represents level 1 on the most recent ELA/MA test.
- Gray means there is no data in Focus or a restriction/override was set.
The ESE, ELL, 504, and Gifted columns display students in fuchsia if their status is No and in teal when their status is Yes.
Setting Restrictions
Restrictions can be added to a student to place them in an ideal class to benefit their learning. These can be assigned before or during the scheduling process.
Click on a student name and a restrictions box will open. Use the pull-down menus to select restrictions for the selected student. When done, click Save.
While the pop-up window is open, click the left or right arrow to navigate to the previous or next student in the list.
Once all restrictions have been added you are ready to optimize.
Optimize
This process is done one grade level at a time.
It's important to understand how students are placed. See below for distribution rules:
KG: Distribution at the KG grade level is by Gender only. There is no prior year data to use for discipline or test scores unless the override options are set on the individual student.
1-3: Distribution of students in grades 1-3 is by Gender and Behavior only. There is no prior year FSA data to use for test scores unless the override options are set on the individual student.
4 and 5: Distribution of students in grades 4-5 will include Gender, Behavior, ELA, and Math FSA scores. Override options can be set on individual students.
With students in the Unassigned column, click Optimize at the top of the screen.
The students are moved from the unassigned column and distributed to all grade-level teachers.
At the top of the screen, click the Gender, Behavior, ELA Scores (Level), and Math Scores (Level) columns to change the colors on the student blocks and view how students are distributed based on this data.
If needed, manually reassign students by clicking and dragging them to different teachers.
The Schedule Students button at the top of the screen turns red.
Until this button is clicked, the classes are saved but the students are not yet scheduled.
Click Schedule Students at the top of the screen to add the packages to the students' schedules.
The Optimize feature takes into account classroom total seats. Some students may be left in the Unassigned column if there are not enough seats available amongst all the teachers.
To undo Optimize and return all students back to the Unassigned column, click Undo Optimize.
**Important Note** Undoing Optimize does not UN-schedule students if Schedule Students was previously clicked. The most recent schedules will remain. You can manually re-arrange students or re-use the Optimize feature and then click Schedule Students again to update their schedules. ** If you do this BEFORE school starts Focus will delete the previous schedule and add the next one. If you do this AFTER school starts Focus will add a drop date to the previous schedule and a the new schedule.