Getting Started

Welcome to Shibutz

Shibutz is a student placement tool designed for elementary schools. It helps administrators and teachers create balanced class lists by distributing students across classes while respecting friend requests, behavioral scales, gender balance, and other constraints.

Whether you're splitting a single grade into two classes or reorganizing an entire school, Shibutz automates the tedious parts so you can focus on what matters most — your students.

Quick Start

Follow these five steps to generate your first class assignment:

1. Create an account— Sign up with your email address and verify it. You'll land on the dashboard immediately.
2. Create a class — Head to Managing Classes and add the target classes you want students placed into.
3. Add students — Enter students manually or import them from an Excel file. See Managing Students for details on attributes and import format.
4. Set preferences & restrictions — Define which students should stay together (Preferences) and which should be separated (Restrictions).
5. Generate— Click "Generate" and let the algorithm do the heavy lifting. Review the results and export to Excel when you're satisfied.

Key Features

Balanced Placement

The algorithm distributes students evenly across classes, taking into account gender ratios, special needs flags, and overall headcount so no single class is overloaded.

Friend Optimization

Each student can request up to three friends. The algorithm maximizes the number of fulfilled friend requests across all classes while still respecting hard constraints like restrictions and gender balance.

Scale Balancing

Students are rated on four scales — social, emotional, behavioral, and learning — using a red/yellow/green system. The algorithm ensures each class gets a comparable mix, so one class doesn't end up with a disproportionate number of students who need extra support.

Pre-Assignments

Need a specific student in a specific class? Use Student-Class Pre-Assignments to lock them in before the algorithm runs.

Constraint Health

The class overview page includes a Constraint Health card that automatically detects conflicts between preferences, restrictions, and pre-assignments — such as contradictory pairs, impossible separation requirements, or pre-assignment mismatches. Problems are flagged before you run the algorithm, so you can fix issues early instead of wondering why results look wrong.

Excel Import & Export

Import your student roster from an existing spreadsheet and export the final class assignments back to Excel for printing or sharing with staff. See Exporting to Excel for format details.

Documentation Overview

This guide is organized into the following sections:

• Managing Students — Adding, editing, importing, and configuring student data.
• Managing Classes — Creating and organizing target classes.
• Student Preferences — Keeping specific students together.
• Student Restrictions — Separating specific students.
• Pre-Assignments — Locking students into specific classes.
• Assignment Settings — Configuring thresholds and parameters.
• Generating Assignments — Running the algorithm.
• Understanding Results — Reading statistics and per-class breakdowns.
• Exporting to Excel — Downloading your final assignments.
• How the Algorithm Works — A look under the hood.

Ready to get started? Head to your dashboard and create your first class.