Assign Houses and Teams

Houses and teams are used to keep groups of students together in the same sections or keep students assigned to the same teacher or period.

Houses are used to group students together so they can be scheduled into a designated set of sections. For example, students in a Partnership Academy may need to be scheduled into specific sections taught by Academy teachers. The students and sections associated with the Academy will be assigned to a single House.

Teams are used to assign a cohort of students into the same sections throughout the academic year. Students in a Team will share identical section assignments for all or part of their schedule.

Individual students and sections can be assigned to a single team and a single  house. Sections assigned to a team or a house must have enough available seats in the sections to schedule all the students in that house or team. A sufficient number of seats must be available for each house or team throughout the academic year.

Students may be mass assigned to houses and teams using the Mass Assign House and Team tool, or they may be individually assigned to houses and teams using the Schedule Request tool or the Walk In Schedule tool. Once a student has been assigned to a house and/or a team, course requests may be assigned to students in bulk using these house and team groupings.

Sections may be assigned to houses and teams within the Schedule Section tool within a Schedule Control Option Set. Or they may be assigned using the Section tool itself.

This chapter contains the following parts:

• Schedule Options for Houses & Teams
• Possible Schedule Rejection reasons for Houses & Teams
• Create Houses & Teams
• Individually Assign students to Houses & Teams
• Mass Assign students to Houses & Teams
• Assign Sections to Houses & Teams
• Determine prior House & Team assignments to students or sections

Schedule Options for Houses

When houses are used for scheduling, they can be processed by one of the following methods. For Mass Scheduling, the method used is selected in the Option Set from the Schedule Control screen. For Walk-in Scheduling, the method is selected in the Course Request and Walk-In Options tab of the School Scheduling Options screen.

• Automatic House Enforcement – Any Student not specifically assigned to a house is randomly scheduled into sections assigned to a single house. If a student is assigned to a specific house in Student Schedule, sections are exactly matched with the student’s assigned house. For example, if a set of English 8, Math 8 and Science 8 sections are all assigned into a ‘Red’ house, and another set are assigned to a ‘Blue’ house, a student in the Red house is scheduled into sections linked to the Red House for all those courses. If a section does not have a house assignment, any student can be placed into that section. If a grade level should be randomly and evenly divided into houses, use this method.

• Match Sections with Houses – This option schedules students assigned to a house into sections assigned to the same house, and is used when students have been pre-assigned into a House in Student Schedule. If no such sections are found that match the student’s course request or if there are insufficient seats in the sections, the student has an incomplete schedule and the reject type will be ‘house restriction’. Students without house assignments will not be scheduled into any sections attached to a house, even if there are available seats. When a specific students are assigned to a house, use this method.

• No House Enforcement - Students may be assigned to a House and sections may be assigned to a House, but the scheduling process does not use the house assignments when calculating the schedule. Students can be scheduled into any section.

Schedule Options for Teams

When teams are used during the scheduling process, they can be processed by one of the following methods. For Mass Scheduling, the method is selected in the Option Set from the Schedule Control screen. For Walk-in Scheduling, the method is selected in the Course Request and Walk-In Options tab of the School Scheduling Options screen.

• Automatic Team Enforcement – Same logic as Automatic House Enforcement.

• Match Sections with Teams – Same logic as Match Sections with Houses.

• No Team Enforcement - Teams will not be considered during the scheduling run. Any team assignments will not be used.

Students assigned to a team are scheduled in that team depending upon availability. Students not assigned a team are scheduled in the first team available for their schedule.

Possible Schedule Rejections for Houses & Teams

• Full – Other students are scheduled in the sections, or the seat count or max total is not even for all the sections within the team.
• House - the student is in a different House than are assigned to the desired sections.
• Team – Sections are not evenly teamed, teams are not defined correctly, or, depending upon the team option selected, the teams may not be defined evenly by teacher, room, and period.

Students may be scheduled into one section of the team and not the other if sections are not available for the other course within the team, or if sections are not evenly created for all courses within the team.

Create Houses and Teams

Houses and Teams are defined for each school in the School Scheduling Options tool. To create Houses and Teams:

1. Go Synergy SIS > Mass Scheduling > Setup > School Scheduling Options.
2. Click on the House/Team/Exclusion tab. To create a new house, click on the Add button in the House Codes section.

3.  Enter a Code  for the House, and enter the full name for the House in the Description column.  It is useful to enter matching and descriptive pairs, since in some screens only the code is shown, while in others only the description is shown.
4. To remove a House code, click the box in the X column next to the code.
5. Click the Save button to save the House codes.
6. To create a new Team, click the Add button in the Team Codes section.
7. Enter a Code for the Team, and enter the full name for the team in the Description column. It is useful to enter matching and descriptive pairs, since in some screens only the code is shown, while in others only the description is shown.

8. Select the option to be used for the Team from the Option drop-down list:

•  Keep Same Period: Students in the same team and with the same course request will be scheduled into sections that have the same team and period. Students on a team may be assigned different sections if there are multiple sections offered in a single period.
• Keep Same Period and Teacher: Students in the same team will have identical schedules as much as possible.
• Keep Same Teacher: Students on the same team will be given sections also assigned to that team, but if a given teacher has multiple sections assigned to that team the students may be mixed between the sections. This is the most commonly used option.
• Keep Same Room: Sections attached to a team will be scheduled if they are all in the same room. In effect, the teacher comes to the student. This option is rarely used.

9.  To remove a team code, click the box in the  X  column next to the code.
10. Click the Save button to save the Team codes.

Individually Assign a Student to Houses and Teams

If the Mass Scheduling process is still underway, use Synergy SIS > Mass Scheduling > Schedule Request to assign a student.

If Mass Scheduling is complete and the Option Set has already been loaded into the active school year, use Synergy SIS > Schedule > Walk In Schedule to assign a student.

Before a student can be assigned to a House or Team, the option must be enabled in the School Scheduling Options tool:

1. Go to the School Scheduling Options tool and click the Course Request and Walk-In Options tab.

2. Check the boxes for ‘Show House’ and/or ‘Show Team’, and Save.

3. The entry boxes to ‘Schedule House’ & ‘Schedule Team’ then appear in the Schedule Request tool.

 Assign an individual student to  a house or a team using the Schedule Request tool:

1. Go to Synergy SIS > Mass Scheduling > Schedule Request.

Find the student.

2. Click on the Options tab and scroll down to the Scheduling Options section.
3. Select the desired house or team from the Schedule House / Schedule Team drop down lists.
4. If for some reason you do not use the house or team assignment during the scheduling process for this student, check the boxes for either Exempt House or Exempt Team.
5. Click the Save button.

Assign an individual student to  a house or a team using the Walk in Schedule tool:

1. Go to Synergy SIS > Schedule > Walk In Schedule. Find the student.
2. Select the Request tab and scroll down to the Scheduling Options section.
3. Follow steps #3 - #5 as described above.

Mass Assign Students to Houses and Teams

1. Go to Synergy SIS> Mass Scheduling > Mass Assign House and Team.
2. Select either the House or Team to assign from the drop-down lists. Each house and team should be processed separately. To clear all current House or Team placements, select the Clear All option.
3. To only update students who have not been assigned a house or team, check the box(es) labeled Modify Only if Blank. To override the existing placements, leave these boxes empty.  
4. Use the Grade Filter to select which grades to assign to the house. Check the boxes next to the Grades or use the Check All  boxes to check/uncheck all of the grades. Click the Include option to include the selected grades in the assignment, or click the Exclude option to assign the house or team to all grades except those selected. If grades will not be used to filter the assignment, click Not Used.
5. Use the Gender Filter to assign students by gender.
6. Use the Students section to select specific students. Click the Chooser button.

• The Chooser screen opens. Enter Find Criteria and click the Find button at the top of the screen.
• A list of students appears in the Search Results section. Double-Click on the name or names of the student(s), or click the Add Selected Row(s) button, to add the student(s) to the Selected Items section on the right. Repeat the search until all students have been found and added. To remove a student from the Selected Items section, click the box under the X column.
• After all the students have been selected, click the Select button at the top of the screen to add them to the assignment.

7. Student assignments can also be further refined using custom filters by clicking on the Additional Filters tab. Complete the conditions as desired. To add another condition, click the Add button.
8.  Once all of the criteria for assignment have been entered into the screen, click the Assign button at the top of the screen to assign the house or team to the students.

Assign Sections to  Houses and Teams

If you are still in the Mass Scheduling process, an Option Set must be created in Schedule Control, and sections must exist in that Option Set before sections can be assigned to Houses & Teams.  If Mass Scheduling is complete and the Option Set has already been loaded into the active school year, use the Section tool (Synergy SIS > Schedule > Section) to assign sections to  Houses & Teams.

Assign Sections to Houses and Teams  with Schedule Control:

1. Go to Synergy SIS > Mass Scheduling > Schedule Control.
2. Click on the icon for the Option Set to be used.

3. Click on the Open Schedule Section link.
4. The Sched Section screen opens. Find the sections to be assigned using the Scroll buttons or Find mode.
5. Once the section is found, scroll to the Restrictions section and select the House and/or Team from the drop-down lists:
6. Click the Save button to save the assignment. Repeat these steps for every section that needs to be assigned a house and/or a team.

Assign Sections to Houses and Teams with the Section tool:

1. Go Synergy SIS > Schedule > Section. Find the section.
2. Scroll down to the Restrictions and select the House or Team from the drop-down list.
3. Click Save when complete.

How to determine House or Team Assignments

Once houses and teams are assigned, it may not be obvious what students or sections belong to a given House or Team.

Find Students assigned to a House or Team

1. Go to Synergy SIS > Mass Scheduling > Schedule Request.
2.  Click the magnifying glass to enter Find mode. Select the Options tab:
3. In the field Schedule House, select a house from the drop-down list.
4. Click Find. Synergy returns a list of all students who are assigned to the selected House. Like other Find results, the list can be saved as PDF or other file type, and it can be used to create a filter of the listed students.
5. To find the students assigned to a Team, repeat steps 1-4, but select the desired Team from the Schedule Team drop-down list.
6. If Mass Scheduling is complete and the Schedule Request tool is no longer available, use the Walk In Schedule tool and perform the same search using the same fields in the Scheduling Options section:

Find Sections assigned to a House or Team

Before the master schedule is finalized, a list of sections assigned to a House or Team can only be found using the Sched Section tool, in the Quick Links of Schedule Control. After the Master Schedule is finalized and loaded into the new school year, house and team assignment can be determined using the Section tool.

1. Select and check out an Option Set. Open Sched Section and click the magnifying glass to enter Find mode. (Or open Synergy SIS > Schedule > Section.)

2. In the Restrictions section, select the desired House from the drop-down list, or select the desired Team from the drop-down list. To identify all House or Team assignments, enter a  ✱ in the fields.
3. Click Find. Synergy returns a list of all sections assigned to the selected House or Team. Like other Find results, the list can be saved as PDF or other file type.