GuideK12 Geovisual Analytics in Education

GuideK12 - Improving Educational Choices

When would you use GuideK12?

1. When determining the most important issues.

2. When taking stock of the community’s assets and challenges.

3. When you want to locate, or determine the existence of a particular group of factors in a population or an issue.

4. When you want to understand the scope of an issue.

5. When you’re deciding where, and on whom, to concentrate your efforts.

When would you use GuideK12?

6.

When looking at changes that have taken place over time.

• To track the course of an issue or condition from some time in the past until the present • To identify changes in demographic and other factors that may influence how you work in the community.

• Has there been a shift, for instance, in the major ethnic groups in the community?

• Has population density changed, or has the median income grown? • To determine whether your work has had the desired effect.

7. When you’re trying to influence policy.

Why would you use GuideK12?

1. GuideK12 can help you determine how seriously an issue affects an area or the community as a whole.

2. GuideK12 can clarify the relationships among several factors, populations, or issues.

3. GuideK12 can demonstrate how differently an issue affects different populations or geographical areas.

4. GuideK12 can show you exactly where to concentrate your efforts.

5. GuideK12 can help you better understand the area or community in which you’re working.

Why would you use GuideK12?

6. GuideK12 can allow you to isolate and examine individual aspects of the situation or area.

7. GuideK12 can provide a picture of the community’s or area’s assets and weaknesses.

8. GuideK12 can help in designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions.

9. GuideK12 can show you change over time.

10. Perhaps most important, GuideK12 maps can help influence policy.

How Do You Use GuideK12 Effectively?

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Enrollment Area Analysis

Create “what if” scenarios Obtain instant results for: – Reassigning an enrollment area; – Opening/closing schools; – Short term reassignments in the case of natural disasters; – Understanding financial implications for school choice students; – Optimizing resources geographically for individual learning needs

Student Analysis Tool

• • • Visualize student data at the household level by filtering on fields uploaded from the school SIS (ELL, Grade level, Demographic, ethnicity, etc.) Analysis on these attributes is difficult or impossible without Aligned with your district’s needs

• • • •

Scenario Tracking Increase community dialogue, trust and support All assumptions and logic driving each scenario is saved and tracked Scenario’s can be easily retrieved to share with board members, administration, community members or other stakeholders

Attendance Area Locator • Parents, realtors and other community members have a few simple questions: • Is this house/lot/apartment in the district? • What elementary/middle/high school would I attend? • GuideK12 can help reduce calls to the front office and parent frustration with a 24/7 look-up feature

• Student and Household Profile • Empower district administrative personnel with the right information to answer questions quickly GuideK12 puts all the information: • student address, • parent/guardian info, • phone numbers, • bus numbers, • demographic characteristics • For front office staff to be efficient and more productive

Proven Benefits GuideK12 allows Schoo0l Administrators to think well into the future, thereby helping district administrators plan the smartest and safest environments for school children. Examples where this has successfully occurred: West Islip, NY- SUE HUSCILOWITC, Director of Instructional Technology and Student Information, “One of the pieces that I can’t do with our current Student Information Systems is to pull information out and look at the data mapped in a geographic format. The use of GuideK12 has allowed us to start to see patterns and understand impact. Redistricting would have been impossible any other way.” West Islip, NY - RICK SIMON, Superintendent of Schools, “GuideK12 has allowed us to almost instantaneously generate reports and data that would have taken weeks in the past. (It) gives our board and administration the information we need to play out a variety of scenarios that would not have been possible with the old system. As a superintendent, having a data base where you can immediately see a zone of your community and how many students are at each grade level and where they actually live, can be very helpful in your planning process.” Grand Forks, ND - DR. LARRY NYBLADH, Superintendent, “Drag a line and – boom! It’s point and-click technology that shows changes in real-time. We can see the effects of a decision immediately rather than waiting to see its consequences.”

Steps for Implementing in a Large School District 1. District provided the schools to use in pilot. Decided upon one Region consisting of approximately 82 schools.

2. Determined data field requirements by completing GuideK12 Student Guide Translation Worksheet . Used this information to map the District’s database to GuideK12.

3. District created and sent a test file of student information containing one unique record per student.

4. District provided a “shape-file” of addresses from existing GIS software files.

5. District staff presented to Senior Administration live demonstration using actual school data and scenarios.

6. District Region staff continued to test and make suggestions to GuideK12.

Looking Ahead with GuideK12 1. Analyze enrollment trends to determine: a. Why are students leaving? b. Where are the going?

c. What is being done or being offered differently that attracts students?

2. Based on student addresses, and District geographical layout, Use GuideK12 to improve transportation routes to make District more fiscally efficient .

3. Using available School Police information, use GuideK12 to identify safe walk zones.

4. By comparing taken courses and grades awarded, Identify students who exhibit non-traditional school trending. 5. Analyze entry level knowledge of student s who enter from private program or school.

6. Identify for parents all schools in surrounding neighborhood area; this will include traditional assigned schools and non-traditional schools that offer other educational choices such as Magnet or Schools of Choice.