By Graham Armknecht ’18
THE ROUNDUP
Every student receives a schedule at the beginning of every new year, but what some people don’t think about is how that schedule comes to be.
Director of Scheduling, Mr. Tony Oldani, strives to accommodate students in the classes they want to take.
“The goal of scheduling is to give every student the classes they need to graduate, and to give every student the classes they want to take,” Mr. Oldani said. “The process starts in January with the Honors and AP applications. Then, students pick electives, go over it with counselors, and by May we try to build 1,300 schedules.”
Honors and AP applications are a large part of scheduling, and Social Studies Department Chair Mr. Matt Hooten explained that a lot of work goes into crafting the applications and admitting students.
“The AP forms are something that I build with a lot of input from the rest of the department,” Mr. Hooten said. “Once the applications come in, I’ll collect the ones from freshmen, and the teachers will collect the ones for their classes. Then, we go through the applications and put students into three different groups: Accepted, Waitlisted and Denied.”
Mr. Hooten explained that being waitlisted isn’t being denied, but rather an opportunity to demonstrate interest.
“Sometimes, a student will have As in all of their classes, but have a B in Honors English II,” he said. “ Sometimes it’s different. For those students that are on the waitlist, I will send an email saying, ‘This is why you didn’t get in. You’re a strong candidate but you need to improve in some ways.’ This gives students the opportunity to demonstrate more interest and to make sure that the AP classes have the best people possible.”
After the all department chairs give the results of the applications and students meet with their counselors, Mr. Oldani has to put together the schedules including electives.
“We currently are using a system called EducationEdge, which is a less restrictive system that allows for all the electives that Brophy offers,” Mr. Oldani said. “The goal is to have 75 percent of schedules done of the first run.”
This is where Mr. Oldani meets, as Mr. Seamus Walsh described, his nemesis: Singletons.
“Singletons are one-off classes that are offered for one period,” Mr. Oldani said. “For example, the senior elective, Modern Fiction, meets only one period. The problem is when you have to look at a kid who wants Modern Fiction, Theodicy in the Holocaust, Honor Chorale, etcetera.”
Mr. Oldani elaborated on the singletons saying that this is often why students aren’t able to to take all of the classes they want, since they will run up against each other.
