Class Solver, a flexible program for creating and managing class lists, has developed an algorithm that’s been proven to reduce COVID-19 outbreaks in schools by 36 percent. The feature builds upon Class Solver’s ability to customize and create class lists based on factors including behavior, academic performance, special needs and parent requests.

“Managing class placement is challenging at the best of times, but with the COVID-19 pandemic we often need to adjust quickly,” said Denielle Toth, Principal at Fricano Primary School in New York. “Class Solver has been invaluable – we’ve been able to create new class lists in minutes while also meeting COVID-19 requirements for our district.”

Class Solver integrates seamlessly with many student management systems. The new “COVID-friendly” algorithm saves time and evaluates factors such as social groups, extracurricular activities, bus routes and household dynamics to determine the impact of interactions at school. The feature follows the recommendations of Ben Schmidt, Director of Digital Humanities and Clinical Associate Professor at New York University, who published data on the correlation between children’s social networks and COVID-19 outbreaks.

“If one child infects, say, 2 other students instead of 10, the reduction in the spread of infections across the school and the wider community could be significant,” said Shannon Forte, Vice President at Class Solver. “Our team is currently examining ways to support contact tracing, and intends to work closely with education and health departments to better inform COVID-19 policy and procedure.”

Educators in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand piloted the solution to support evolving local COVID-19 regulations. Schools can optimize for hybrid learning models, multi-grade groupings, and family dynamics such as siblings sets and co-parenting situations.

“Our district recently decided do an A/B schedule, and with Class Solver, I was able to quickly redo my lists instantly to meet the new schedule,” said Lacy McKinney, Principal of Chackbay Elementary School in Louisiana. “It was a huge life saver!”

“Creating class lists manually often take schools more than a hundred hours involving all of their staff,” said Amy White, Founder of Class Solver. “We’ve been able to save schools time, but also make a real difference during the pandemic – it’s just so satisfying.”

Class Solver’s COVID-19 algorithm is currently live, and is available to all of Class Solver’s district clients. To learn more, please visit https://classsolver.com/us/.