Using Student-Centered Scheduling to Address Equity

Presented by Karin Chenoweth, Author of Schools that Succeed; Sergio Garcia, Principal, Artesia High School; and Chris Fitzgerald Walsh, Head of Impact, Abl
Sponsored by Abl

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With an ever-growing number of school programs and activities (SPED, RTI, ELL, PBL, SEL, CBE, and more!), secondary schools are more complex than ever before. All of this activity comes to a head in the school’s master schedule where everything needs to fit together into a finite number of minutes.

It’s no wonder that so many school leaders find it difficult to design and manage a master schedule that meets the unique needs of all students—especially underperforming students.

Watch Karin Chenoweth, Writer-in-Residence at The Education Trust and author of Schools that Succeed, and Sergio Garcia, Principal of Artesia High School, to learn how student-centered master scheduling can play a transformative role in student success. Specific case studies and scheduling examples highlight how middle and high schools across the country are strategically using the master schedule to tackle their most pressing challenges, including addressing equity and access.

About the Presenters

Karin Chenoweth is Writer-in-Residence at The Education Trust. She leads the organization’s efforts to learn from and write about successful and improving schools with significant populations of children of color and children living in poverty. In Schools that Succeed: How Educators Marshal the Power of Systems for Improvement, Karin explores what it looks like when expert school leaders ensure that all of a school’s systems, from supplies and schedules to discipline systems, are designed to support instruction. Schools that Succeed builds on her previous trilogy of “It’s Being Done” books but digs deeper to help educators see how they can move forward, even in dismaying circumstances. Karin holds a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of Journalism and a B.A. from Barnard College.

Sergio Alejandro Garcia is the Principal of Artesia High School in Lakewood, California, part of the ABC Unified School District. During his tenure, Mr. Garcia has led the transformation of Artesia High School through established targets, research based instruction, and data analysis. He attributes much of this success to an intense focus on the master schedule—which he says is the “heart of the school.” Artesia High School serves a diverse student body of 1,500 students with 75% of students qualifying for Free and Reduced Lunch, and most students will be the first in their family to attend college. Artesia students consistently outperform students at similar schools in California, and the school boasts a 99% cohort graduation rate.

Chris Walsh is an experienced K-12 educator, media producer, and entrepreneur. Since his days as a middle school teacher, Chris has leveraged digital tools to bring large-scale innovations to teaching and learning. Chis currently leads Growth & Impact at Abl, a mission-driven ed tech company offering next-generation scheduling solutions. Prior to Abl, Chris was the CEO of Zaption, an innovator in interactive video for learning; the company was acquired by Workday in 2016. Chris has held leadership positions with numerous national education organizations including New Tech Network, WestEd, and the KIPP Foundation. He also co-founded the Google Teacher Academy and created the Infinite Thinking Machine, one of the first internet TV shows for educators.

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Abl’s smart, flexible master scheduling solution helps secondary school leaders dramatically improve the entire scheduling process, from analyzing their current schedules to surfacing tradeoffs in real-time to refining student placements and balancing class compositions. Abl’s easy to use tools and expert coaching transforms scheduling from a tactical chore into a strategic asset that ensures all students get access to the courses they need to be college and career-ready.