Required Placements

Required placements let you lock a specific student into a specific class before running the placement draft generator. The algorithm treats required placements as fixed — it will never move them — and builds the rest of the class lists around them.

What Are Required Placements?

A required placement is a binding instruction that says "this student must be placed in this class." Unlike preferences or restrictions, which guide the algorithm's decisions, a required placement removes the decision entirely — the student's class is already determined.

When to Use Required Placements

Required placements are useful in situations where a student's class placement is non-negotiable:

Specialized programs — A class offers a specific curriculum track (e.g., gifted program, bilingual instruction) and certain students must be enrolled in it.
Parental requests — A parent has formally requested a particular teacher or classroom, and the school has agreed.
Additional support needs — A student requires a specific classroom environment, aide, or teacher trained to support their needs.
Administrative decisions — School leadership has decided certain students should be in a given class for scheduling, logistical, or policy reasons.
Returning students — A student who changed classes mid-year needs to be placed back into the same class for continuity.

How to Add a Required Placement

To create a required placement:

Navigate to the Required Placements tab on your yearly class dashboard.
Select the student you need to lock from the dropdown.
Choose the target class from the class dropdown.
Click Add Required Placement to save it.

Each student can only have one required placement. If you change your mind, remove the existing required placement and create a new one.

How Required Placements Affect the Algorithm

When you generate a placement draft, the algorithm:

Places every student with a required placement into their designated class first.
Treats those placements as immovable — they cannot be changed during optimization.
Distributes the remaining students around the fixed placements, optimizing for balance, preferences, and restrictions.

Because required placements are locked in, they affect the balance calculations. For example, if you lock five boys into the same class, the algorithm has fewer options to achieve even gender distribution across all classes.

Tips for Required Placements

Don't over-constrain. The more students you lock, the less flexibility the algorithm has to create balanced classes. Use required placements only when there is a clear reason.
Let the algorithm do the balancing. If your goal is balanced classes, trust the algorithm with as many students as possible. Lock only the exceptions.
Check for conflicts.Make sure required placements don't contradict restrictions. If Student A is restricted from Student B but both students are required to be in the same class, the algorithm cannot produce a valid result.
Review before generating. Double-check your required placements list before generating a draft. It is easier to adjust beforehand than to re-run the algorithm.