Community-Engaged School District Design: A Stream-Based Approach

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ozel, Aysu; Smilowitz, Karen; Goldstein, Lila K. S.
• 署名单位: Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: OPERATIONS RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0030-364X
• DOI: 10.1287/opre.2022.0621
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 1916-1931
• 关键词: operations-research; MODEL; desegregation; location

摘要

Comprehensive community engagement in public school district design is essential to create equitable and effective enrollment policies reflective of community needs and values. We revisit the school district design problem with a focus on codesigning with community partners. We introduce a new compact formulation that incorporates multiple decisions simultaneously by assigning students in each geographic unit to a set of schools (e.g., elementary, middle, and high schools, and schools with specialized programming) with a single composite variable, referred to as a stream. This formulation is computationally efficient and easily reconfigurable for evolving problem specifications that are endemic to community codesign. These features were essential in the district redesign process described in this paper, allowing the community to iteratively develop proposals to address inequities in access to education and improve the student assignment process.