Room Assignments

1. Room Assignments Room Assignments is a companion Excel spreadsheet to the Master Schedule Board tool and is dynamically linked to it. For this tool to work properly, the Master Schedule Board tool needs to have specific cells filled in: The teacher name The room number the teacher is in each period as in the example below The Room Assignment tool does not require the other Master Schedule Board entries of course name and seat counts. Additional Requirements: 3) Since Room Assignments is linked to the Master Schedule Board tool, Room Assignment must be able to “Find” the Master Schedule Board tool when it is opened. The best way to make this happen is to place the Room Assignment tool and the Master Schedule Board tool together in the same folder. 4) Always open the Master Schedule Board tool first then open the Room Assignment tool. Following this procedure, the Room Assignment tool will “Find” the correct information in the Master Schedule tool.

2. File Names and Issues when Names are Changed Because of the dynamic link between Room Assignments and Master Schedule Board, changing the name of the Master Schedule Board will cause the following warning box to appear: (This warning will also appear if Room Assignments is opened before Master Schedule Board or if the two spreadsheets do not reside in the same folder) From year to year you may want to keep copies of these files. It makes sense to rename the file to something like Master Schedule Board_2014-15 (changing the name of Room Assignment causes no issues). One solution is to create a Master Schedule 2014-15 folder and place the two files in it. Each year keep a new pair of files in another folder. This is the recommended method. By the way, if you keep more than one Master Schedule Board and one Room Assignment in a single folder, unpredictable results will occur. If you really need to change the name of the Master Schedule Board, the next slide will guide you through the process.

3. Changing the Name of the Master Schedule Board and Re-Establishing the Link with Room Assignments Begin with both files closed and together in a single folder Change the names of the files to the names you want to use Open the re-named Master Schedule Board spreadsheet Open the re-named Room Assignment spreadsheet The following warning box will appear Click on Edit Links… The Edit Links dialog box will appear Click on Change Source A navigation dialog box will appear Navigate to the re-named Master Schedule Board file 11. Click on the re-named file to select it 12. Click on OK 13. You will be back at the Edit Links dialog box 14. Click on Close and you will have re-established the link

4. Room Assignments Setup There is a small amount of setup for Room Assignments to work. In column A, list the room numbers exactly as they are listed in the Master Schedule Board. As you enter the room numbers, the names of the teachers who are assigned to each room for each period will appear. If the names do not appear, check back on the Master Schedule Board to make sure the room numbers are spelled exactly the same (spaces make a difference – Rm9 and Rm 9 are not a match). Location by Room Once room numbers are listed in column A, teacher names appear in the chart.

5. The final setup step is to list the teacher names in column L. Again make sure the names are spelled exactly the same as in the Master Schedule Board. Location by Teacher Two teachers scheduled into the same room Now Room Assignments is all filled in. As originally set up, Room Assignment prints on one sheet of legal sized paper. Adjustments to this can be made as necessary. From year to year, just save a copy and you won’t have as much setup to complete.

6. Making a Room Assignment • Normally making room assignments is fairly straight forward, but there is one situation that can cause issues. With tight budgets, it is fiscally responsible to keep the staffing allocation on the conservative side. If a school site is given a staffing allocation that is too low, adding teachers (usually after the school year begins) will provide the relief to balance classes, but can be disruptive if adding teachers results in room sharing. There are some things you can do to diminish the disruption: • When you are faced with the above situation, inform teachers of the possibility of adding teachers along with room sharing before it happens • If you can, manipulate the master schedule when you build it to overcrowd either English or Social Science classes. If you have to hire a teacher after the school year begins, you have a higher probability of finding teachers with these credentials. If your master schedule is perfectly balanced, but crowded in all areas, it is very difficult to add one section each of English, Math, Science, History, PE and …… well, you get the point • Limit the number of room changes to one change per teacher – including the new teacher • Make room changes following a prep period or lunch • The next page is a sample of how to shift rooms to make space for a new teacher

7. Making a Room Assignment 6 Rooms, 6 Teachers, No sharing 6 Rooms, 7 Teachers, Sharing X X X X X X X X Just one room change for each sharing teacher with the move following a prep period.

8. Thank You!! Patricia Clark 510.504.3826 patricia510@gmail.com Phil Saroyan 707. 246.2078 jp9@jps.net This tools and many more resources are available on our web site http://casn.berkeley.edu/