A Study in Using Linear Programming to Assign Students to Schools

A great deal of recent work has been directed toward using mathematical programming to achieve racial balance in urban schools. However, with the ever increasing cost of fuel for buses, there also appears to be a need to apply these techniques in nonurban school districts to reduce the use of fuel. This paper describes a pilot study of the use of linear programming to design attendance areas in such a way that student-miles are minimized. Using data gathered in a nonurban school district, this LP formulation was tested using the UNIVAC LP package. The resulting computational results are presented and discussed.