SNM 2017-09-11: Long-overdue status update

2016-09-11: Long overdue status update

We've recently had a lot of people asking us for an update on what has been going on with the Soft Neighborhood Model, so we figure we are overdue for a status update. Here is a timeline of events so far in 2017.

2017-03-22	Interim Superintendent McKean asks us to meet with him and staff to discuss the SNM.
2017-03-29	We meet with IS McKean, Sascha Perrins, Laura Parker, Judy Brennan, and Shawn Helm, and give a short presentation on the SNM. The take-aways from this meeting: We discover that DBRAC has tentatively set aside time for us to present the SNM to them on May 11, along with a presentation by staff on other alternative enrollment models. We plan to figure out an alternate date that would work for all of us. We discuss the possibility of setting up a FERPA-compliant data-sharing agreement which would allow us to get the data we need to continue modeling the SNM. We plan to send a revised data request and to work on such an agreement with Laura.
2017-04-06	We propose to Judy Brennan that we give the SNM presentation at either the May 25 or June 1 DBRAC meetings.
2017-04-20	We send a revised data request to Laura Parker.
2017-05-01	Judy Brennan confirms that our SNM presentation to DBRAC is scheduled for June 1.
2017-05-17	Judy Brennan tells us the June 1 presentation has been cancelled (so that DBRAC can review McKean's proposal for Tubman and Roseway Heights).
2017-06-09	We receive initial feedback from Laura Parker on our revised data request.
2017-06-14	We meet with Laura Parker and Stephanie Harper to discuss our data request in the context of FERPA. We plan to hash out more technical details of the data request with Laura and her staff via follow-up email or meeting, and we plan to provide PPS with a draft data sharing agreement.
2017-07-17	We send our questions about the initial feedback (to our data request) to Laura Parker.
2017-07-31	We send our draft data sharing agreement to Laura Parker.

And that's where things are at with PPS.

In the meantime, we have continued making technical improvements to the SNM. Some notable developments:

Handling assignment of new groups of co-enrolled siblings. (Imagine that a family with a 7th grader, 3rd grader, and two twin 1st graders moves to the district, and their candidate schools include a mix of K-5, K-8, and middle schools....)
Support for multiple batched assignments for a school year, which is necessary to handle ongoing enrollment throughout the school year (i.e., "late arrivals").
Expressing the balancing step as a least-squares optimization problem with bounded linear constraints.