Abstract
School Demography Using Community Analyst
Track: User Presentations - Administration
Authors: Deane Lycan, Charles Rynerson
Community Analyst (CA) provides a rich source of data and tools for school demographers and for GIS and school demography student projects. The paper draws on the authors' experience as demographic consultants to school districts to assess the potential of using CA for school planning. CA provides easy access to current census data and the ability to allocate it to school attendance areas. It saves time in building a school demography database and doesn't demand elevated GIS skills. However the historical data needed to assess demographic trends in CA are limited. CA's pre-designed reports aggregate useful demographic data but no single report meets our needs. The authors created a sample report template specifically designed for school demography use, based mainly on CA data, but supplementing from other sources where required. We also assess the value of short term population forecasts in CA as a basis for school enrollment forecasts.