By Caroline Fahmy

It is no exaggeration to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has created a chaotic environment for school district administrators particularly in managing student enrollments. School districts should start collecting and analyzing demographic data now to understand and plan for necessary changes in their districts next fall.

Public school enrollments are dropping around the country, and no one knows where, whether, and when school districts will see those students in seats¹. Other pandemic-related demographic changes could have far-reaching implications for school enrollment. A survey by the Pew Research Center found that,

Among those surveyed in early June, 3% say they themselves moved permanently or temporarily due to the coronavirus pandemic, and 6% say someone moved into their household because of it….An additional 14% of those who did not personally experience relocation say they know someone else who moved².

Enrollment analysis is also complicated by shifts of students into private schools. After an initial flurry of private school closures at the start of pandemic-related shutdowns, it seems that more families are choosing private schools with face-to-face options when their public schools offer only online classes³. It is unclear whether the students will return to public schools when the school districts offer more in-person instruction.

In these circumstances the only survivable posture for a state or school district is to acknowledge uncertainty. That means preparing for multiple scenarios, not just one⁴.
Paul Hill, writing for the Center for Reinventing Public Education

One thing the pandemic has demonstrated is that schools can be successful at adopting technology to meet rapidly changing circumstances. Geographic information systems (GISs) such as ONPASS® Pro include tools to help school districts manage uncertainty by creating planning scenarios based on local data. Will your district need to close a school? Change the location of educational programs? Adjust attendance boundaries? With a GIS in place in your district, you can create multiple planning scenarios to meet your unique needs, especially over time as demographics across the district change.

Putting GIS technology in place now will give you a head start on planning for next fall. A GIS is a specialized data base that combines many different types of information using location as the key. The ability to analyze existing data is consistent with expert advice about school district planning, even in non-crisis situations.

Brian Eschbacher, former executive director of planning and enrollment services for Denver Public Schools, points out that successful districts…

link academic outcomes with data related to sustainable enrollment levels, facility condition and capacity, and choice patterns. They disaggregate student data by socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, native language or special education status to reveal changing patterns in student needs and achievement. More sophisticated districts are attuned to varying dynamics of different regions or neighborhoods within the district⁵.

Enrollments and the demographic makeup of schools may never return to what they were before the pandemic so having a GIS planning tool in place now will be crucial to addressing challenges in the months and years to come.

Footnotes

1) https://www.npr.org/2020/10/09/920316481/enrollment-is-dropping-in-public-schools-around-the-country
2) https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/06/about-a-fifth-of-u-s-adults-moved-due-to-covid-19-or-know-someone-who-did/
3) https://www.cato.org/blog/why-not-more-private-school-closures-increasing-evidence-suggests-theyre-offering-person
4) https://www.crpe.org/thelens/restoring-public-education-post-covid

A geographic information systems (GIS) is a powerful relational database that stores, relates, manipulates and reports data, but it also includes a geospatial or mapping component. Where a relational database presents data in tables, graphs and charts, a GIS does that plus it stores points, lines, and polygons that can be presented on maps.

GIS is not a new science—it actually got its start back in the 1960s—but in the last decade or so, it has become more and more common in our everyday lives. For example, we use GIS applications on our phones to lookup routes and tell us how long it will take to walk, ride a bike, or drive there. We find gas stations, stores and restaurants in relation to where we are. We go to maps online to find out more about things like the spread of disease, available resources by area, and wildfires. Maps mixed with dynamic data are an effective way of communicating important trends and information, helping to answer questions and revealing patterns and relationships in data we may not otherwise see.

There are many GIS applications from which to choose, some are free and open source. But effective use of software—even free or low-cost software—requires resources that may not be available and an ongoing need that would justify the investment in an inhouse GIS system.

A GIS consultant is an effective alternative.

To setup the GIS to answer questions specific to your district or organization, your consultant will need to customize the GIS with your data. Data elements include points, lines, and polygons that lay on top of your geography—translation: buildings, bus stops, food pickup centers, childcare centers, students, clients, etc. (points), and boundaries of your district and internal zones such as school attendance areas or wards (lines and polygons). You will need to work closely with the consultant initially to get your data loaded. The process of inputting your points, lines, and polygons into the GIS is involved and something they specialize in so you can leave that in their hands.

Once your data is loaded, the GIS opens a world of possibilities: just ask the questions and see what answers are to be found.

• Where do our bilingual students live in relation to our schools with bilingual programs?
• To which other schools should we assign students who attend School X that we plan to close?
• Where is the best location to build a new school given the growth in our student population?
• How do we ensure we maintain equity of services and education and minimize student travel time?
• What will be the effect on our school attendance numbers if we allow/do not allow inter- and intra-district transfers?
• How can we identify client addresses who live within our service zones so funding can be properly allocated?
• What would be the effect on bussing costs and student travel time if we increased our walk-ride buffer from one-half mile to one mile around each school?
• Where do the students live who did not show up to school and what is the quickest way we can send staff out to do a personal visit?
• What households are affected by the flooding (or fire or earthquake, etc.) in the east side of our district?
• What would be the effects of changing our school boundaries to address inequities in educational services? And, how do we best communicate the changes to the boundary lines?
• What would we see if we overlaid a map of Internet services over our students’ residences? Is there anything we can do to improve Internet access and service in poorly covered areas?
• What would we see if we overlaid a map of crime data over our students’ residences? Is there anything we can do to help with student transportation in these areas?

The questions and answers are almost endless. Find a GIS services company that will input, store, and maintain your district or organization’s geospatial data into a GIS and then remember to consider the geospatial aspects when challenged with communicating information to your stakeholders, evaluating options, and asking what-if questions.

Susan McMillan, September 2020

At Educational Data Systems, we believe that geographic information systems (GIS) provide school district administrators with a key that unlocks efficiencies in using existing data.

If you are like many superintendents, your daily leadership tasks fall into roughly three categories: educational, political, and managerial¹. Which tasks occupy most of your time likely depends on the size of your district and whether it is urban, suburban, or rural.

No matter your circumstances, effective leadership requires that you use data analysis to inform your decision making.  Assessment, budget, facilities, labor contract data…the list goes on and on. Given the potential for data overload, adding geographic information to the mix may feel both overwhelming and irrelevant to your daily tasks.

However, geography is more than a physical location. It combines location with physical and/or cultural attributes (characteristics) associated with that location². According to GIS-industry leader Esri, all aspects of a school or a district have a “geography”³. School buildings and bus shelters have a “fixed” geography. Students and buses have a “mobile” geography.

Geographic information systems (GIS) created specifically for school district planning use location as the key to merge data from various systems across the district.

Where’s the GIS Benefit for Educational Leadership teams?

Focus on Equity. With geographic data, leaders can analyze the location of educational programs in relation to where student needs are greatest. Your SIS data in a GIS—which functions as a relational database—will show not only who your students are, but where they are, and whether they all have access to high-quality educational programs and facilities, regardless of demographic sub-group.

Improve Achievement. Understanding all the factors that contribute to student academic success is an ongoing and data-intensive project. Chronic absenteeism is one factor that is negatively associated with student academic achievement⁴. With geographic information tied to student-level attendance data in a GIS, you can map the data and see where those students live, as in Figure 1. The map can show where targeted interventions are likely to be most effective.

Communication. Day-to-day operations are more efficient with GIS tools. Schools districts with interactive school locator maps on their websites communicate which schools children will attend based on address, and can incorporate many other pieces of information relevant to the community.

GIS tools also add capacity for district leaders to use data to support change. Changing school boundaries, permanently closing a school building, opening a new school, and reconfiguring grade levels are politically challenging processes. The data needed for these difficult decisions can be overwhelming when presented in table after table. Further, discerning patterns from tabular data is challenging, even for experts who are familiar with the data.

Easy-to-interpret maps are an effective way to mitigate the data overload problem and communicate patterns. The map in Figure 2 shows the geographic distribution of students relative to schools; information that is simply not available in the enrollment table.

When your data are in a GIS, you can use location information to demonstrate to your community why change is necessary and to model alternative scenarios. Districts that use GIS find that they can answer questions quickly and efficiently “in-house” rather than paying outside consultants.

Answer a whole new set of questions. Combining location data with other school district data in a GIS gives leaders the ability to answer questions that are not easy to answer without location information. Examples include:

• Where do we have buildings with spare capacity?
• Where are our buildings that are overcapacity?
• Where should we target funds for improvements?
• Do we need a new school? If so, where should it be located?
• Do we need to close a school? Which one?
• What is the best way to assign students to schools using my district’s criteria?
• What threats to safety are near our schools (e.g., railroad tracks, major roads, flood zones, earthquake fault lines, distance to fire station)?
• Where are the students most likely to need help recovering from a disaster or emergency?

If you are a school district administrator drowning in data, GIS tools provide an organizational principle that will help you use all of your data more efficiently.

Footnotes

1) contextual influences on superintendents’ time usage, https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/390/513

2) https://www.nationalgeographic.org/activity/characteristics-of-place/

3) http://downloads2.esri.com/edcomm2007/syfr/pres/7-Syfr-ESRI-2009-Administration.pdf

4) https://www.epi.org/publication/student-absenteeism-who-misses-school-and-how-missing-school-matters-for-performance/