Balanced Class Lists: A Principal's Guide to Planning Ahead

Balanced class lists set students and teachers up for success. Principal Carrie Hetzel shares her team approach, time-saving tech tools, and advice for planning ahead.

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Creating balanced class lists is one of the most important — and labor-intensive — tasks elementary principals tackle each spring. In this episode, Carrie Hetzel, principal of Paradise Canyon Elementary School in California (a National Blue Ribbon School), explains how her team builds balanced class lists using a multi-stage revision process that combines data with deep knowledge of every student. She also shares how Class Composer, a class placement tool, cut hours off their workflow by updating data in real time.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What a truly balanced elementary class looks like beyond just numbers
• How a principal, teachers, and counselor collaborate through multiple revision rounds
• Why starting the class placement process in May — not June — makes all the difference
• How Class Composer provides real-time data analysis and built-in safety checks
• Why class placement should be seen as a positive, forward-looking process

Show notes and resources: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e926

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