What are Student Rotations used for?

Some caseloads include students who have a unique weekly schedule.  SLP Scheduler handles these unique weekly schedules by assigning each student to a student "rotation".

There are 3 basic types of Student Rotations:

• Standard week
• Partial week
• Alternative week

Finally, it's possible to overlap combinations of these three.

Standard Week

Most caseloads use only 1 Student Rotation--that of a standard school week.  In that case, you can use the following:

• Student Rotation #1 ("Mon-Fri"):  Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri

Partial Week

Some students only attend a school building for a partial week.  This may be due to coronavirus-related measures, or other arrangements.

For example:  If "Group A" students are in the building on Mon/Tue, and "Group B" students are in on Thu/Fri, then the following Student Rotations should be used:

• Student Rotation #1 ("Group A"):  Mon, Tue
• Student Rotation #2 ("Group B"):  Thu, Fri

Alternative Week

Some caseloads use an alternative school week. such as this 6-day rotation:

• Student Rotation #1 ("A-F"):  A, B, C, D, E, F

...or this simpler 2-day alternating rotation:

• Student Rotation #1 ("A-B"):  A, B

Overlapping Rotations

If your caseload includes some students on a standard school week AND some students on an alternating A/B schedule, it can be a scheduling nightmare!

SLP Scheduler can overlay these multiple Student Rotations onto each other.

For example:

• Alice's week follows a 5-day schedule:

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

• Bob's "week" follows a 2-day schedule:

A

B

Since Bob's rotation isn't truly a "week" per se, the caseload editor instead refers to these cycles as "rotations".

If you're to see both Alice and Bob in your caseload, it's really tricky to schedule because a given Tuesday (for you and Alice) could be either Day "A" or Day "B" (for Bob). A simple 5-day schedule would mean that you'd have to block out extra time in your schedule since every day could be Day "A" or Day "B".

Mathematically, the best way to solve this kind of multi-rotation scheduling problems is to schedule as if the therapist cycle is an overlapped version of the two Student Rotations. For example, in the above example, the overall therapist cycle would be 10 days long (not just 5).  The first day would be both "Monday" (for Alice) and Day "A" (for Bob).  The entire rotation would look like this:

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
A	B	A	B	A	B	A	B	A	B

The way that the scheduling engine refers to this 10-day cycle is by putting a dash between the two day names:

1. Mon-A
2. Tue-B
3. Wed-A
4. Thu-B
5. Fri-A
6. Mon-B
7. Tue-A
8. Wed-B
9. Thu-A
10. Fri-B

Days "A" and "B" just repeat, overlapping the normal 5-day rotation.

To avoid excessive constraints, students in the 2-day rotation are not necessarily seen on the same time every day in their rotation (A or B). Since the cycle repeats every 10 school days:

• Students in the 5-day rotation may have 2 different times throughout the overall 10-day therapist cycle (e.g. once on Tue-B and once on Wed-B)
• Students in the 2-day rotation may have 5 different times throughout the overall 10-day therapist cycle

This is less than ideal, but mathematically it's the only real way to approach creating multi-rotation schedules efficiently. It guarantees that students are seen one time during each of their rotations and makes the most "free" time for the therapist.

Still confused?

If none of these examples quite match yours, please contact Support.  We're happy to help get you down the right path!