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Importance and Uses of School District & K-12 Education Geodemographics Can you visualize the dynamics of the geodemographics of your school district? This section reviews some of the components that can come together to enable this. School districts and their stakeholders focus on demographics about their district, related city(s), and possibly adjacent and peer group school districts. These uses of geodemographic information are focused on 1) the most up-to-date demographics, 2) detailed attributes of students, schools and neighborhoods, and 3) how the current situation will change in the next several years -- how many students will be here, when and where. Proximity works with school districts to geocode student data, enabling student-school pattern analysis using the Proximity CommunityViewer software (CV). Once the data are geocoded, student data may be represented as markers in dynamic mapping applications. Student demographics and performance data are integrated so that these resources become a tool to examine patterns and ways to improve school performance. Using the desktop CV, all data are secure and immediately accessible to district leadership, management, and planning staff. Proximity develops school attendance area boundaries with/for school districts and then develops associated attendance area demographics. Attendance area map files and demographic data are combined with the student data to extend the analytical capacity. What-if analyses can then be made to examine building capacity and the implications of alternative attendance zone configurations. Patterns can be identified with respect to student performance. Tax parcel map files may then be integrated into the CommunityViewer projects enabling analysis of types of residential versus non-residential land use patterns in a manner integrated with the student and school data. These student, school, and school district centric data resources are also integrated with key Federal-sourced more detailed and updated geodemographic resources. Some of these geodemographics are summarized below. Decennial Census & Federal GeoDemographic Updates. Data from the decennial census and related Federal statistical programs augment the analytical potential of using school district sourced data for planning and decision making. Reasons that the Census 2000 school district demographic data are important include: • most current demographic data available for all school districts • only source of "school district community" demographics (rather than administratively reported enrollment data) • only source of "drill down" demographics to census block and neighborhood levels • a unique source of benchmarking for LEAs, SEAs for planning & logistics • enable comparison of school district demographics relative to peers and neighbors. Data from Census 2000. As of Census 2000, there were 14,404 school district tabulation areas (SDTA's). The 14,404 SDTA's include 50 special tabulation areas in Hawaii and 32 special tabulation areas in New York that are not Federal school districts. The remaining 14,322 SDTA's include 17 areas where school districts are not defined and 19 areas categorized as water areas -- these 36 SDTA's are not covered by public school districts. The remaining 14,286 SDTA's are public school districts and are comprised of 11,091 unified districts, 492 secondary districts, and 2,703 elementary districts. While many others might be listed, there are three key sets of decennial census data for or about school districts: census block demographics (see this partial list of items), school district special tabulation (see description), and school district demographic profiles (uniquely available from Proximity, see this list of DP1-DP4 items). Federal Sourced Demographic Updates -- Estimates. The Census Bureau annual population estimates program produces annually updated population, population components of change data, and population by age estimates for counties and higher level geography. The program also produces estimates of incorporated cities and school districts. The annual population estimates for school districts are developed for use by the U.S. Department of Education Elementary and Secondary Education Act to allocate Title I funds authorized under that legislation. Federal Sourced Demographic Updates -- ACS. A second category of school district demographic updates is from the Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS). Envisioned to replace the decennial census as it has been known, ACS provides annual demographic updates. For the first full year of deployment (2005) school district with population over 65,000 were included. Smaller (indeed most) school districts will not be included in the ACS until the 2010 ACS program, or the equivalent of Census 2010. Federal Sourced Geographic Data. The Census Bureau TIGER/Line files, a national scope wall-to-wall digital geographic database, provides detailed street segment and geographic coding that enable development of street map files, city and town updated boundary files, school district boundary files to name a few. Integrated and Up-to-Date Planning and Analysis Resource. This section has presented a summary of some of the essential school district geodemographic resources, how they can be integrated, and how they can be used. There is a continuum of the multi-sourced data, critical to a holistic planning and decision-making process, updated throughout the year. Once a framework is established for updates and analysis is is easier to anticipate when renewed or extended data can be used and shared by district staff. Contact Proximity to learn more about putting these decision making information tools to work in your school, community or school district. [goto top] |
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