ALBANY — Classes have been cancelled at Albany High School until Monday because of problems with the master class scheduling system for students.

Superintendent Eva Joseph, who had expected to be able to open the high school on Thursday, despite some scheduling problems, decided late today to postpone opening until Monday.

Students in ninth, 10 , 11 and 12th grades will not have to report to the school until Monday when classes will begin.

"We continue to have scheduling problems we started to notice in mid August and encountered last week that the master schedule that was built was faulty," said Ron Lesko, district spokesman.

When individual student schedules were run off the master schedule, a large percentage of the schedules were coming up with one or more errors, or holes in the class schedules.

Rather than have 2,400 students without schedules, district officials chose to have a normal, orderly start on Monday to the school year, said Lesko.

No one person is being held accountable for the error, he said.

Frustrated parents and students say all scheduling should have been finalized in July or August.

Typically, class schedules are finalized and sent out in mid-August, but there were many factors this year including changes in school opening and closing times and numerous academic programs that helped create a "perfect storm" said Lesko.

"We understand peoples' frustrations. We are frustrated as well, "said Lesko.

"We understand it's our responsibility to have a schedule and we apologize to all students and families. We understand it's a failure on our part."

District officials say they are working as hard as they can to have accurate schedules. "We want students to be in class and have a schedule. No one feels worse than us."

Freshman orientation was held today for about 650 freshman and when they arrived their schedules were not available.

The two days that students will miss because of the errors will have to be made up during the school year though they have not yet been scheduled.

Students can still report to the school from 9 to 2 p.m. Thursday and Friday to get identification cards and if they have any questions, teachers and staff will be available, though no classes will be held.

The schedules may be available for students and parents to pick up on Saturday and Sunday.

Parents may contact the school district at 454-3987.