The most important and least visible task is maintaining location-specific data. Some examples of location-specific data tracked and maintained include: streets, addresses, parcels, and residential development projects. Various other data is maintained which influences settlement patterns and/or is required for reporting purposes. These various datasets are used in coordination with historical student data to develop student enrollment projections. 

Student enrollments changed based on natural growth (births) or changing settlement patterns (new development, aging development). The District projection methodology matriculates students through the grade levels using a standard cohort projection from historical student populations. This projection is modified by such demographic factors as birth rates by zip code, student mobility (how often students change addresses), and housing type. Finally, planned residential development is accounted for to project growth based on district in-migration. With this methodology the department is able to: 

• Identify and plan for future school capacity requirements;
• Identify area for potential future school sites to accommodate future growth;
• Create 1-10 year projection data in different configurations such as zones, grades, and geograpic areas.

Rezoning plan models use the student projections and localized study areas to analyze potential effects of population growth relative to the capacities of individual schools. This insight grants us the ability to better manage our existing facilities by identifying high growth areas to create strategies to remediate a capacity issue. Rezoning is not the only solution to deal with capacity issues but it is an effective tool to prevent major capital improvement expenditures.  

The GIS Team supports year-round district operations such as Capital Improvement Plan developments, School Capacity Report and Development Tracking, Short-Term Residential tracking, Mapping Requests, Demographic Research and Managing Educational Impact Fee Exemption Applications.