How Shibutz Balances Class Lists
Shibutz uses your saved roster, classrooms, and placement rules to generate class lists. Use those lists as a draft for staff review. A balanced set of counts cannot tell you whether every placement meets a student's needs.
Before you add student data
Use only information your school has authorized for placement. Read the student data handling guide for service providers, retention information, and AI-related questions to review before uploading a roster.
What goes into a placement
The input includes student scales, support flags, sending schools, friend requests, staff pairing preferences, separation rules, required classrooms, and saved settings. These are different inputs, not interchangeable ways to record the same instruction.
Student friend requests and staff Preferences
Record up to three student friend requests in the student editor or the import's Friend 1, Friend 2, and Friend 3 columns. Requests are directional: A requesting B does not create a request from B to A. Staff use the separate Preferences section for pairs they would like placed together. Adding a staff preference does not add a friend request to either student's record.
Friend requests and staff pairing preferences are goals, not a promise that every requested pairing will be possible. The results' friend percentages describe student friend lists, not the staff Preferences list.
Scale and support balance
Social, emotional, behavioral, and learning scales use Low need, Watch, and High need labels. They help you compare the support profile across classrooms alongside the support-needs flag. The results show counts and distributions, not clinical assessments or average numeric scores. Agree on a consistent rating approach before entering the roster.
The boy/girl difference is a limit
Boy/Girl Difference Allowed per Classroom is a configured constraint, not a soft target for matching the cohort's gender percentages. With a limit of 3, the difference between the male and female counts in each classroom must be at most 3. A cohort-wide gap that cannot fit across the classrooms blocks generation. Students recorded as Other count toward roster and classroom totals, but not the boy/girl difference check.
Sending-school groups
The Split larger school cohorts across classrooms setting is on by default. Its purpose is to avoid concentrating a large feeder-school group in one classroom while keeping small groups together when practical. It does not guarantee a particular school distribution. Review sending-school information in the student table.
Required rules and balancing goals
- Restrictions require two students to be in different classrooms. Required Placements specify one student's destination classroom. A valid placement must satisfy both.
- Each classroom's custom capacity overrides the workspace default. The configured boy/girl difference is also a limit. These boundaries can make a placement impossible; they are not traded away to honor a friend request.
- Friend requests, staff pairing preferences, scale balance, and sending-school grouping guide the search within those boundaries. The results help you compare these goals across classrooms.
The Constraint Health checks catch specific contradictions before a run. Passing them does not prove that every combination of rules can be satisfied.
How required classrooms affect the options
Required Placements fix a student's destination. For example, two students who must be apart cannot both be required in Room A. More required placements leave fewer choices for the remaining students.
Comparing another run
Each successful run saves a separate result using the submitted data. Changing the workspace does not rewrite an earlier result. Make one approved change at a time and compare the resulting lists. Another run is not guaranteed to improve every measure.
Free includes 3 generations per workspace. Pro removes that plan limit and enables XLSX export.
Deciding whether a result is suitable
Check required placements and separations, then compare classroom size, support profiles, and individual friend outcomes. There is no universal friend-rate pass mark. A high aggregate rate can still hide a student who has none of their requested friends.
Change capacities only within school-approved staffing and policy limits. Do not remove a necessary support or separation rule just to raise a summary percentage.
Staff make the final decision
Review the student placement results with the people authorized to make placement decisions. The software can organize the recorded constraints; it cannot replace local knowledge of the students and the support available in each classroom.