I am working at a brand new school (preschool through 8th grade) and the bell schedules keep changing with grades getting released at different times in the day, etc. This is likely to continue for the next couple of years. Are there any huge pros or cons to setting up a different school for each grade level? Any input would really help me out and I would be extremely grateful. Thank you!

The only reason I would set up different schools would be to generate student schedules or if teachers have to take attendance for each class throughout the day. I set up different schools for my intermediate division (4th-6th grade) because each grade had a different schedule. If you have separate schools you have to make separate report cards, separate reports, etc. I do need a separate 6th grade, because we print and hand out schedules for 6th graders that need to have the schedule for each day correct by time. We don't for the other 2 in intermediate. Having this experience from the first year, when I set up my Lower School this year (PK3-3rd) I did not create separate schools. For them each individual teacher has a different schedule anyway, and we don't give schedules to students at those levels. You can't do automatic scheduling that way, but I don't for grades PK3-5 anyway. As long as you place the classes in the master schedule grid, attendance and grades can be done without any problem. You can still create separate report cards and reports wherever you need them, but you can also create one common one if you want. Beth Teahan Beth Teahan Computer Application Maintenance & Training Officer Saint Stephen's Episcopal School Bradenton, FL 34203

Creating seperate schools is an incredible amount of work and maintenance. If they have different bell schedules and they are based on grades I would suggest using your patterns to define them. You will run into a bunch of issues with transcripts if you create grades in seperate schools (I have found schools like to use transcripts when a student transfers out of a school in the lower grades). Karla Coop