By Jack Goldfisher

Upper school students’ schedules became available on the Harvard-Westlake web site Friday, Sept. 2, three days earlier than was expected. Final adjusted student schedules complete with teacher assignments were, in past years, released the day before school started, but they were completed early by the upper school schedulers.

“Every year we work on them as fast as we can, and try to get them available as quickly as possible,” said Head of Upper School Harry Salamandra.

Upper School Dean Beth Slattery credits the early completion of scheduling to the new, simpler schedule change request forms.

“In years past, we had more back and forth with students as we tried to understand exactly what they wanted,” Slattery said. “This year, the forms were quite clear and it expedited the process.”

This year, the schedulers had over 700 schedule change requests, and were able to accommodate “the vast majority of them,” said Assistant to the Head of Upper School Michelle Bracken. Because of the new rules prohibiting non-essential schedule changes after the adjusted schedules have been released, these will be the final schedules for nearly all students.

Salamandra said that he was happy with the timing of the completion of the schedules because it will give incoming sophomores who attend the barbecue a chance to figure out their schedules and plan how they will deal with the restrictions caused by the construction on campus. Slattery said planning for construction wasn’t a factor in trying to get the schedules out sooner.

 “It’s a helpful byproduct, since students can think about mapping out their routes to class in advance,” Slattery said.