Student relationships
What is Friend preferences?
Friend preferences are student or staff-noted requests to place specific students together when possible.
What it means in class placement
Friend preferences are more than popularity data. Used carefully, they reveal relationships that help students transition, participate, and feel safe enough to learn. Used carelessly, they can freeze social patterns that need room to change.
Placement teams usually treat friend preferences as soft constraints. The preference matters, but it can be outweighed by safety, support distribution, classroom capacity, or the need to separate a difficult dynamic.
Examples in a real placement meeting
- 1
A shy student is placed with one trusted peer to ease the first weeks of school.
- 2
A team honors one friend request but not all three because the class would become unbalanced.
- 3
A counselor distinguishes a supportive friendship from a pair that distracts each other.
How Shibutz uses this idea
Shibutz captures friend preferences and shows friend placement outcomes after generation, so staff can review the tradeoffs.
Add student preferences