associations - What is wrong in our Rails modeling mentality? -

if users --> students // employee (single table inheritence), , both belong organization --> school // work (single table inheritance), proper way write association? put organization_id user class, , wrote belongs /has many in respective subclasses, when call user.school, "nil", though has organization_id = 1.

user.rb

class user < activerecord::base   attr_accessible :email, :name, :password, :organization_id, :type end 

student.rb

class student < user   belongs_to :school end 

employee.rb

class employee < user   belongs_to :company end 

organization.rb

class organization < activerecord::base   attr_accessible :name end 

school.rb

class school < organization   has_many :students end 

company.rb

class company < organization   has_many :employees end 

i advise not use single-table inheritance. benefits it? students , employees different things, schools , companies. should separate tables. make life so, simpler in long-run. , if don't use single-table inheritance, problem goes away too.