Amanda Lu, Paymon Rouhanifard, Christopher Cleveland, Ev Gilbert, Susanna Loeb
A central challenge facing education leaders is allocating limited resources in pursuit of their priorities. Three of their critical resources are time, money, and people. A school's master schedule reflects the allocation of all three of these critical resources and ultimately determines the educational opportunities available to students. A school’s schedule dictates who will be teaching them, what they will be learning, where this learning will take place, and how much instruction they will receive.
Those who create master schedules, “schedulers”, are attempting to optimize resources across a multitude of demands and constraints. An effective master schedule is essential for directing school operations that determine the course of the academic year. As a director of student support at Noble Schools, the largest charter school network in Chicago, described:
“It's literally the map of what we do. A master schedule is your plan, so if your schedule doesn't work, or if it's not working for a specific group, it's very obvious and in your face. And when it is working you don't notice it…”
Assistant Director of Student Support, Noble Schools
Recent changes have both highlighted the importance of the master schedule and provided new tools to more effectively and flexibly schedule. The COVID-19 pandemic reduced learning and led many students to disengage from school, both of which called for greater individualized attention to accelerate student learning and rebuild their overall well-being. Yet, these kinds of supports require complex scheduling. New scheduling tools—such as those utilizing AI optimization technology—allow educators to optimize these complex demands, though even with these tools, educators have to navigate external pressures and maintain focus on their strategic priorities.
In this brief, we identify the demands on school leaders when creating a master schedule, note the trade-offs present in trying to meet the needs of diverse student populations, and identify key capacities and supports for schedulers. We conclude by discussing the skills and tools that can help education leaders better navigate demands while allocating resources effectively to meet their strategic priorities.
The importance of the master schedule
Strategic master schedules optimize instructional time and teacher effectiveness, accommodate the needs of protected student groups, and promote equitable access to high-rigor coursework for all students through iterative and collaborative design processes between administrators and teachers (Center for Public Research and Leadership, 2021; Education Resource Strategies, 2022). Recent research on master scheduling as a tool for promoting equity emphasizes schedule adaptability and flexibility, critiquing traditional technical approaches that mechanically sort students without adapting to changing student needs or student populations (Hibbeln, 2020).
Master scheduling has been a central driver of education reform in recent decades, and the role of the master schedule as a tool for reducing student achievement gaps continues to expand across U.S. school systems (Center for Public Research and Leadership, 2021). The implementation of Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) and Response to Intervention (RTI) has introduced more complex scheduling challenges, as schools must coordinate targeted interventions, progress monitoring, and data-driven decision-making across multiple tiers of support while ensuring minimal disruption to core instruction. Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed a shift to online learning that forced secondary schools to dismantle traditional schedules during the transition to virtual learning, drawing attention to the importance of centering student needs within block scheduling to combat higher absenteeism post-pandemic (Center for Public Research and Leadership, 2021; Education Resource Strategies, 2022; UConn Today, 2024).
While recognition of the importance of strategic scheduling has grown, as of 2020, 72% of U.S. secondary schools still used rigid traditional schedules despite proven alternatives (Unlocking Time, 2020). These traditional scheduling patterns are unsurprising given the complexity of assigning all the teachers and students in a school to the courses that they need within the limits of the school day. Yet, new technologies offer opportunities to optimize schedules and allow for flexible schedules without the time and skills traditionally needed for effective allocations.
The shift from paper to software tools
Before the introduction of advanced scheduling tools, high school educators created master schedules through a labor-intensive, largely manual process that required balancing student needs, teacher availability, and course offerings using spreadsheets, whiteboards, or even paper charts. Often, schools collect course requests from students and manually determine demand for different classes. Administrators then assign teachers to specific courses while ensuring that classrooms are available, often relying on experience and trial-and-error adjustments. Using grid-based methods, staff work to arrange courses into periods or blocks while minimizing conflicts, and ensuring that students can take all required classes without overlaps. However, conflicts—such as a student needing two classes scheduled at the same time—have to be identified and resolved manually, requiring significant time and effort. Once a workable schedule is achieved, students are placed into classes, with counselors making final adjustments for those with conflicts or special needs. This iterative manual process is time-consuming, prone to errors, and inflexible when last-minute changes—such as staffing adjustments or unexpected enrollment shifts—occur.
In this era of rapidly expanding education technology (EdTech), innovative AI-driven scheduling tools have emerged as powerful solutions to the complex challenges of master scheduling. These tools not only reduce the manual workload for administrators but also introduce a data-driven, strategic approach to scheduling, ensuring that student needs, teacher availability, and institutional priorities are balanced more effectively than ever before (CFI Group, 2023; The Journal, 2025). By leveraging machine learning algorithms and predictive analytics, AI scheduling platforms can analyze historical enrollment patterns, optimize course placement, and anticipate scheduling conflicts before they arise.
Beyond automation, these tools promote the emerging concept of strategic scheduling, a student-centered approach that prioritizes equitable access to courses, intervention opportunities, and personalized learning pathways. For example, AI-driven systems can dynamically adjust schedules to accommodate multi-tiered interventions (MTSS), dual enrollment options, or flexible learning models—something that would be incredibly challenging, if not downright impossible, to manage manually at scale. Additionally, these platforms enable administrators to respond swiftly to unexpected staffing changes, new student enrollments, or evolving curriculum demands, ensuring that schedules remain adaptable and efficient throughout the school year.
The introduction of advanced scheduling tools marks a transformational shift in education planning, moving beyond traditional static schedules to adaptive, student-centric models that enhance both learning opportunities and operational efficiency. Advanced software algorithms and AI scheduling tools may help schools design strategic and efficient schedules that leverage the master schedule as a structural tool to center student needs while overcoming administrative and external constraints. In this brief, we use the introduction of such tools in multiple districts to better understand the goals that educators have in setting their master schedules, the tradeoffs they are willing to make, and the potential to better meet their goals when the allocation of the resource of time is in itself less time consuming and more easily optimized.