by Jack Smolik (Posted on February 23, 2026 @ 11:38 a.m.)

Getting your schedule is a big deal. These slips of paper decide nine months of your life. But do you even know how schedules are made? There are many challenges to creating schedules. Seventh- and eighth-graders have a large selection of electives. No matter what you get, the school tries its best to change and fix schedules for students.

Course Placement

At Alamo Heights Junior School, there are three different class levels: GT, ADV, and Grade Level. To get into GT, you must test into it. According to Mrs. Taggart, “GT placement is done through testing… advanced and on-level courses are what we call open enrollment. So anybody can take an advanced class and grade level classes.” GT, ADV, and grade-level course selections are put into HAC. Mrs. Taggart says there are parameters in HAC. These parameters help create schedules.

How Are Schedules Created?

Schedules are created by software. The software creates something called a master schedule. The parameters are set in HAC by the school and are designed to create schedules based on students’ needs and the electives students choose. If there are lots of students who pick an elective or course, the school needs to hire more teachers to fill those spots. Mrs. Taggart said, “We do use software. But what we do first is we take all of the students’ course requests… those course requests tell us how many teachers we need for that particular course.” All of these factors go into creating schedules with software and hiring teachers for courses.

Electives

At Alamo Heights Junior School, there are lots of electives that students can choose from. According to Mrs. Taggart, seventh- and eighth-graders have choices like Mule Time Media, Theater, band, office aide, library aide, etc. For sixth-graders, there are fewer options. Sixth-graders also only have one elective because they have to take reading. Seventh- and eighth-graders take two electives. Students may not get their top one or two choices for electives, but they can switch out of classes. At the beginning of the year, there are colored slips that students take to the office to talk about switching. You must do this at the beginning of the year. Mrs. Taggart told me that you can’t switch classes after the first nine weeks, but you can change core classes up to two times in the first few weeks of school. For electives, you can complete a form to request a change. However, these requests can’t always be fulfilled.

Conclusion

After all, students at Alamo Heights Junior School request electives and courses to create their schedules. Software creates master schedules to meet students’ needs and requests. All of these components come together to make students’ schedules as effectively as possible. This is a system that is interconnected to benefit students and teachers.