It’s become a ritual: As the first day of school approaches, Grant High School students listen impatiently as their friends at other schools complain about, or celebrate, the release of their schedules. On Aug. 21, Lincoln High School students received theirs. However, it wasn’t until Aug. 25 — five days before the first bell of the 2023–2024 school year rang — that Grant students could open StudentVue and see what their year held in store.
After waiting almost the entire summer, Grant students were left with a burning question: “Why does it take so long to get our schedules?”
Step one: Forecasting
At Grant, students begin forecasting for their new classes in late January — seven months before the next academic year will begin. During forecasting, students fill out a form with the top classes that they want to take the following year. At that time, most students are hurtling toward the end of semester one — their minds set on exams rather than whether or not they should take Audio Engineering or Advanced Placement Calculus the following year.
Step two: Counselors meet with students
Once forecasting and course requests are finalized, counselors meet with every student individually. “Counselors are responsible for ensuring students enter course requests accurately, and that requests align with course policies such as prerequisite requirements,” Grant counselor Holly Johnsen says. Checking in with each student individually takes many weeks to do. Due to Grant’s overcrowding, each counselor has over 300 students to look after, significantly more than other Portland Public Schools.
Step three: Aligning classes, teachers and classrooms
As soon as students and counselors finalize course requests, the administrators’ job begins. “The classes that students forecast (for) pretty much dictate the classes we’re going to run in the fall,” Grant Principal James McGee says. Administrators have to make sure that there are enough students to fill each class, as well as a teacher who can teach it. “I mean, it sounds great to have 15 students in (a) class. But it’s not a good use of our resources,” McGee adds.
More complex still is how every teacher needs a classroom. “A lot of people say to me, ‘Where are you going to put those 2,200 kids?’” McGee says, “The big issue is, where am I going to put the teachers? Teachers have to have a space to teach (students).”
Grant has 104 classrooms — definitively not enough for the number of teachers and classes taught each period. As a result, classes have had to meet in other spaces, like the Multicultural Center and converted teacher offices. Ideally, teachers would move as little as possible to maximize their prep time between periods, but unfortunately that isn’t the case at Grant. Many teachers face the struggle of packing up all their belongings and switching classrooms from one period to another.
Step four: Schedules are built
During the summer, the vice principal of curriculum, Morgan Hallabrin, and the vice principals’ secretary, Kara Coffey, build the schedules. Using a program called Abl, which allows administrators to plan classes one by one, they calculate class sizes and build each teacher’s individual schedule. Then, they run students’ course requests through the “master schedule” they build, which consists of all of the teachers’ schedules. Finally, they run students’ course requests through it many, many times until they get a perfect fit.
This process takes the entire summer.
Step five: Counselors double check schedules
The work doesn’t end there.
Two weeks before the school year starts, counselors go over each student’s schedule once again to check for any errors or mistakes. After that, schedules are released to Grant students.
Once this happens, emails begin rolling into counselors’ mailboxes as students request to change their schedules. Johnsen says, “Counselors see students individually for errors for the first few days, and then open up our time to accommodate elective changes.”
Overall, building Grant schedules is a complicated, lengthy process with many twists and turns. The seven-month period between forecasting and the release of schedules, administrators say, is necessary for the schedules to be as accurate as possible. “There’s always so much more happening back here,” says McGee.
