[siosonel]

Thanks for working on the technical side of this social-equity project. Was the possibility of parent offering car pools or "walking groups" for kids included in the algorithm? I'm assuming that if volunteer parents are compensated to give carpool rides or lead walking buddies, then the negative impact would be lessened to parents who has to handle drastically different school start/end times. At the same time, it may be cheaper to compensate volunteer parents than for the district to procure or maintain more buses.

Another way to ask this question is: were there volunteer transit, ride share, or pre/post-school care incentives included in your algorithm, to balance the potential negative impacts to parents?

[lodrein]

Yes and no. The algorithm runs with historical student data and therefore only considers students using the bus system in order to compute the effects of school start times on transportation. On the other hand I think the district had planned to used the saved transportation money (~18 million/year) in order to help the most impacted parents (pre/post school care...)

I guess volunteer transit is always a positive thing for the parents and the districts. The algorithm was just trying to fulfil the objectives given by the district (costs, later students, fairness...). The compensations are what should happen after the algorithm: what do you do with the saved money, how do you help the most impacted parents? These negative effects were expected to disappear with the years as new parents start to choose the schools after the start times have changed (and therefore choose schools that can accomodate their schedules).