Key takeaways
- Treat equity of duties as an explicit planning goal.
- Keep hard workload caps separate from soft fairness goals.
- Use soft constraints to balance load and extra working days where possible.
- Use must-teach and can-teach flexibility to improve feasible allocation.
What does fair distribution cover?
Fair distribution covers the equity of allocated duties. It asks whether load and extra working days are being shared as well as the timetable rules allow.
It does not override contract caps. Run overload checks first, then use soft constraints to improve the spread.
What data helps balance allocation?
Use data that affects feasible allocation.
- Current teaching load for each teacher
- Allocated duties for each teacher
- Extra working days created by the timetable
- Must-teach assignments
- Can-teach assignments
- Protected non-teaching time from the workload baseline
How do planners review fairness?
Review fairness after hard workload checks are clean.
- Confirm contract caps and overload checks first.
- List duties, load, and extra working days by teacher.
- Mark must-teach and can-teach flexibility.
- Use soft constraints to balance load where feasible.
- Use can-teach flexibility to reduce uneven allocation.
- Record any remaining imbalance that hard rules prevent.
Why separate hard caps from soft fairness?
A hard cap says the allocation must not exceed the rule. A soft fairness goal says the planner should improve the result where possible.
Mixing the two creates confusion. A fairer spread cannot justify an over-cap teacher, and a legal cap result can still deserve a fairness review.
What should leaders confirm?
Confirmation should show both the hard result and the soft result.
- Contract caps have passed overload checks
- Duties are listed by teacher
- Load balance has been reviewed
- Extra working days have been reviewed
- Must-teach assignments are separated from can-teach options
- Remaining imbalance is tied to a hard rule or limited flexibility
What if fairness cannot improve?
Sometimes hard rules leave little room to move. Fixed availability, high workload, or too many must-teach assignments can limit fair distribution.
When that happens, record the reason. The next planning cycle can then test whether more can-teach flexibility, different duty allocation, or a better staff-loading match would improve the result.
Questions planners ask about fair distribution
Is fair distribution a hard rule?
Usually it is a soft quality goal. Hard caps still come from contracts, availability, and other binding rules.
What can soft constraints balance?
The sourced model describes soft constraints balancing load and extra working days across staff.
Why does the must-teach or can-teach scale matter?
More can-teach flexibility gives planners more room to balance duties without breaking feasibility.