I attended a K12 GIS Symposium hosted by Coppell ISD this past Friday. I was hoping to find other school district personnel who were using GIS in their back office administration applications. I came away a bit disappointed and proud at the same time. No one was using GIS in the HR and Facilities area. We were told that Forsythe County in Georgia is using this technology in a similar innovative manner.
GIS in K12 can be divided into two major camps. The first camp involves integrating the technology in the classroom, primarily in Geography. One presenter shared that the Department of Labor estimates a 20% growth rate in Geospatial professions by 2018. I think the profession is still a bit of a niche but it is growing. Most of the symposium attendees were interested in the classroom application. In fact, the symposium's second day was focused on the classroom application of GIS technology.
The other major camp of K12 GIS users is in administration. In particular the areas of Transportation, Facilities Management and Demographics are the departments most likely to use GIS technology. I would add HR and Finance to the mix as well, but those areas require a strong ERP or database system as a prerequisite. According to a couple of the presenters, Transportation has the greatest potential to deliver the most cost savings. A representative from US Computing claimed that Transportation departments can save 25%-50% of their costs by utilizing GIS technology. I believe this number could be on the high side since many districts are utilizing tiered bus routing and other strategies. However, utilizing the same routing strategies as FEDEX and UPS would seem to reap some benefit.
Personally, I believe that GIS demographics will yield the greatest strategic benefit. Issues such as attendance, ethnicity balance, academic achievement and a myriad of other areas could be studied. According to one presenter, Detroit Public Schools is using GIS demographics to determine which schools to close. Pittsburgh Public Schools has employed a similar strategy. We are using a combination of demographics and building plans for space utilization planning. I was introduced to a new term at the symposium, the micro-environment. Traditional GIS is concerned with large areas. However, building drawings can be imported into ArcGIS and analysis performed at the room level. This is a major initiative of our Facilities Department. Converting the building diagrams is a complex process that I can hopefully cover in a future post.
Overall, it was a good symposium and it is refreshing to see school districts picking up this technology. Adoption should see considerable cost savings in transportation and campus planning. One administrator at Garland ISD noted that mistakes in estimating enrollment costs $50,000 per mistake. For me personally, GIS is another tool to add to my BI toolbox. I am not sure that GIS has reached a tipping point to where a professional can specialize in the area. There are a few positions out there, but most organizations have not formed a GIS strategy or department. It is most frequently used in an ad-hoc manner. One speaker confirmed this observation by stating that 10% of GIS users are full time specialists. The other 90% of the user community utilize GIS in a complementary manner to other duties.
