Case Article—Optimizing Transportation and Equity in a District Zoning Problem for ORville Public Schools

Kelly M. Sullivan () and Ashlea Bennett Milburn ()
Additional contact information
Kelly M. Sullivan: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701
Ashlea Bennett Milburn: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701

INFORMS Transactions on Education, 2025, vol. 26, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: This case asks students to solve a multiobjective optimization decision problem applied to school district zoning. In the case, residential areas in a school district must be assigned to middle schools having capacity limits. The operational considerations on the decision are the weighted distances traveled between students’ residences and their assigned middle school campuses. The ethical considerations pertain to equity in education and are measured using the numbers of economically disadvantaged students assigned to each middle school. This problem, including its two objectives, is motivated by a real zoning problem faced by a school district. Publicly available data from the school district and its rezoning efforts are used to populate the case. To complete the case, students model and solve an optimization problem both with and without the ethical considerations included. In doing so, they observe how ethical considerations can change the outputs generated by the optimization model. Evidence is provided from student surveys to indicate how completion of the case impacts perceptions of the importance of and understanding of how to include ethical considerations in optimization modeling. Results indicate statistically significant increases in those perceptions.

Keywords: multi-objective optimization; generalized assignment problem; district zoning; public schools; transportation; equity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0046ca (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orited:v:26:y:2025:i:1:p:1-7

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in INFORMS Transactions on Education from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().