Question: The Arden County, Maryland, superintendent of education in responsible for assigning students to the three high schools in his county. He recognizes the need to bus a certain number of students, for several sectors of the country are beyond walking distance to a school. The superintendent partitions the county into five geographic sectors as he attempts to establish a plan that will minimize the total number of student miles traveled by bus. He also recognizes that if a student happens to live in a certain sector and is assigned to the high school in the sector, there is no need to bus that student because he or she can walk to school The three schools are located in sectors B, C and E.

The following table reflects the number of high-school age students living in each sector and distance in miles from each sector to each school: