The Timetable Tango: Behind the Scenes of Hamber’s Annual Course Change Lineups

Hamber students lining up in the cafeteria, waiting to speak to their counsellors | Photo Credit: Adelaide Guan

At the beginning of every school year, students line up for hours on end, waiting to speak with their grade counsellor. By patiently staying in line, they hope to make changes to their timetables, which have been automatically assigned by the school’s scheduling algorithm.

“It was very chaotic,” said Camille Basso (12) regarding this year’s course changing period. “There was a big line for every counsellor, and it was hard to keep it organized because everyone wanted to go up [to the counsellors’ suite].” Basso is one of Hamber’s Peer Counsellors, a team of grade 12 students responsible for helping younger students in situations like these.

As for what causes the chaos, students speculate that there are a multitude of factors at play. Peer Counsellor Shaan Sandhu (12) reflected on the different reasons why students seek course changes. “To be honest, there are a lot of students who just change their schedules because they don’t like the teacher, or they don’t like their class.”

Ms. N. Sandhu (Counselling) confirmed this observation, adding that these requests “are not something we are able to accommodate” due to the great number of students with more pertinent issues in their timetables.

Data collected through the counsellors’ online course selection form revealed that this year, a total of 327 students requested course changes. These students were asked to categorize their request into one of four choices: “incomplete timetable”, “missing course for graduation”, “change elective course”, or “other”.

Out of the 327 responses, 68 students chose “incomplete timetable”, 31 chose “missing course for graduation”, and 83 chose “change elective course”. 48 students — representing about 45.3 per cent of responses — selected “other”.

In comparison, there were a total of 185 course change requests last year. 66 of those respondents selected the “other” category, representing about 35.7 per cent of responses.

The nature of the requests in the “other” category are up for speculation, but it likely includes those wishing to switch classes to be with their friends or a different teacher. It also likely accounts for course changes related to balancing course difficulty in each semester, which was not an issue during the linear system. “Now, students want more balance, which is understandable,” said Ms. Sandhu.

“There’s also kids wanting to accelerate more. So, you want, for example, grade 10 math in one semester, and grade 11 math in the second,” Mr. C. Smith (Counselling) added. “There’s a lot more of those requests, which we didn’t have before.”

With so many students lined up for different reasons, it was difficult to ensure that everyone was in the correct queue. Basso shared that the Peer Counsellors weren’t entirely sure how to manage all the chaos, and it was difficult to get the crowds to listen. “We would yell, ‘if you’re not in grade 12, you shouldn’t be in this line’, but they wouldn’t move.”

While these lineups are a yearly occurrence, Ms. Sandhu said that students may have perceived this year’s lineups differently from those of previous years. “People in grade 12 right now went through the pandemic years, when things were a little bit different. Especially when we had the quarter system, there was much more flexibility because there was space in classes. That’s not always the case.”

Ms. Sandhu also reflected on how our expectations of quick service have changed. “I really sense the lack of patience in students this year,” she shared. “It could be a cultural thing, because now we can easily go online and order something and have it delivered to us instantaneously.”

Furthermore, Hamber recently lost a counsellor. With five grades and only four counsellors, each counsellor is now responsible for more than one grade of students at a time, thus increasing their workload. “If you [are in charge of] one grade, you have maybe 260 to 300 kids,” said Mr. Smith. “Now we’re closer to 400 kids [each], so that’s going to take time too.” The greater workload is exacerbated by a recent increase in students new to the catchment, as newer students often require extra help during the scheduling process.

Ms. Sandhu added that a shortage in teachers over the past two years, especially in technical studies, has meant that “we haven’t been able to fill teaching positions, which has resulted in the collapse of blocks.” Whenever classes are cancelled, students previously enrolled in those classes must be rescheduled, taking up even more of the counsellors’ time.

Mr. Smith explained that the timetable creation process is long and is mainly out of the hands of counsellors. “Finding the right number of people, getting [teachers’] blocks, it’s a long process. Long story short, [students] choose courses in February. [...] Come April, we actually get our funding from the school board, [...] and they say, ‘Okay, you get X number of blocks for your school, and you can use X number of teachers.’ Then we have to go through our plan and see if it aligns, and that’s what the administration do, not us. [...] Once that’s all done, then they start looking at us.”

The administrative process of creating timetables is typically complete by the beginning of summer break, Ms. Sandhu shared. Since counsellors are not in office at that time, students are only able to receive their timetables in early September.

Course selection and scheduling remains a complex issue, but there are a number of ways in which the situation could be more efficient. “I think one way that you could see things change a lot would be if, quite frankly, governments funded schools better,” said Mr. Smith. “That comes from a level far above our school, [...] [but] I think that could be a huge help, not just to our school, but to schools in general.”

Ms. Sandhu added that while counsellors still play a major role in helping students make decisions regarding their course load, there could be value in “a more automated process where students look themselves and they wait to see if someone drops out of a course, and then they can put themselves in.” She noted that the online course selection form, which was first implemented last year, is one example of how the counselling department has already begun to use technology to improve its course selection process.

As for why students did not receive a master timetable to help them plan their courses this year, Mr. Smith and Ms. Sandhu explained that it was because students constantly drop in and out of classes. Thus, even if a master timetable were provided, there would be no guarantee that every class would have spots open. They advised students to check with their counsellor regularly, as spaces might open up over time. “It changes daily — by the minute, sometimes!” said Mr. Smith.

On top of this, Ms. Sandhu suggested that students change their perception around course scheduling. “Nobody wants to stand in line, but this is the way systems are. I think that it is useful to, instead of having a frustrated mindset, have an open mindset, because even if you don’t get what you want, you can still make it a great experience.”