How Westover School Made Every Student Request Count

At Westover, a team of three people spent hours moving post-it notes across a wall until every teacher, classroom, and required course fit together. By the end of the process, the timetable worked. What the team couldn't know was whether it worked equally well for every student. That single question changed how Westover started approaching scheduling. Instead of asking whether the timetable fit together, the school began asking whether every student could actually take the courses they had chosen. The difference between those two questions shaped everything that followed.

The Challenge

Westover's academic program leaves very little room for error. Many Advanced Placement courses run as singletons, and several specialized electives are offered only once every two years. Students often build their academic plans around these courses. If a student can’t get into two singletons, there may be no second opportunity to take both before graduation.

This makes scheduling far more complex than it appears. Historically, this meant that compromises were inevitable. Students occasionally had to choose between courses they wanted, not because the school lacked academic opportunities, but because resolving one conflict often created another.

From Teacher-First to Student-First

ScheduleX changed how Westover refined its schedule. The first schedule achieved 100% course fulfillment, with every student receiving every requested course. "When you're putting things on a wall, you're really looking at teacher availability," Michele says. "ScheduleX totally flips that on its head. We're taking into account every single specific student request."

Instead of stopping once the timetable (teachers, rooms, sections) worked, Hannah Galos, Westover's registrar, could continue testing different possibilities, understanding how each change affected individual students before deciding on the final schedule.

‍The Impact

The Westover School ultimately achieved what had previously seemed out of reach: every student received every course they requested.

For a boarding school in New England, one of the most competitive independent school markets, that is more than a scheduling metric. Families often choose a school because of the academic opportunities it offers, whether that's a particular AP course, a specialized elective, or a program that aligns with a student's interests. At Westover, many of those courses are offered once every two years. Therefore, by placing every student into every requested course, Westover could consistently deliver the personalized academic experience that differentiates the school and reinforces the return on investment families expect from a Westover education. Assigning every student all the courses they requested meant the school could consistently deliver on the academic experience it promised.

The benefits carried into the school year as well. Because the schedule was finalized before students returned to campus, families received schedules ahead of move-in, giving them time to ask questions and make changes before the year began. As Michele puts it, "It's not the scramble of, 'Hey, welcome back,' and I have 42 schedule changes to process on day one." Instead of spending the first days of school reacting to scheduling issues, the academic office could focus on welcoming students back to campus.

The process also became far less dependent on institutional knowledge. This was Hannah Galos' first year serving as registrar and her first time leading the scheduling process. "I don't think I would've made it if we were just doing it on the wall," she says. "Just knowing that we had a system that would spit out a schedule, even if it wasn't perfect, it gave us something to work from."

For Westover, that meant scheduling no longer depended on years of experience held by a small group of people. It became a process that new team members could learn, own, and improve.

Looking Ahead

The Westover School is beginning to ask questions that once felt out of reach. The team is exploring whether staffing assignments could be driven more directly by student demand rather than long-standing teaching patterns. They are also considering expanding course registration to advisors, distributing more of the workload while maintaining oversight of the process.

The team's focus has shifted. Scheduling is no longer just an annual task to complete. It has become a planning tool that helps Westover make better decisions about how the school operates.

Michele on Working with ScheduleX

For Michele, 100 percent course fulfillment isn't just a scheduling achievement. It's a way for Westover to consistently deliver the academic experience families expect when they choose the school. After two years using ScheduleX, Michele says the biggest surprise is how much the experience has continued to improve.