The Roll of GIS In School Board Planning

Presentation Overview ► Introduction ► Board’s Roll in the Planning Process ► GIS at York Catholic ► GIS At York Public ► Student Transportation ► Collaboration Between Boards

Introduction ► There are currently 169,000 students attending our schools ► There are projected to be be 198,000 students attending our schools by 2018 ► 289 schools; 120 proposed future schools ► 45,000 students receive transportation on a daily basis ► GIS is used primarily within the Planning Departments at both Boards. ► Both Boards are ESRI users, with a full District Site License that allows for unlimited use of all ESRI software throughout the Board, (both at the Board office as well as in the schools) ► While the 2 school Boards cover the same jurisdiction, for the same purpose, they operate completely independently of one another

Role in the Planning Process ► Commenting Agency ► Residential development / developments that have the potential to generate students ► Boards designate school sites at the secondary plan stage ► Involved in community design  Walkable communities  School / Park / School ‘Campus’ facilities  Minimize number of students requiring transportation  School Site design ► Funding for school sites (propety) is generated through the collection of EDC’s (Educational Development Charges ► Funding for the construction of schools is received from the Ministry of Education

Organizational Structure York Catholic ► The Board is split into 2 main entities ► Learning Services  Academic arm of the Board responsible for curriculum, staffing, research, ► Corportate (Leading) Services  Finance, Plant (Operations), IT, Admin Services

Organizational Structure

GIS at York Catholic ► Creation and Maintenance of school attendance areas

GIS At York Catholic ► Geocode Student address points for analysis

GIS At York Catholic ► Development Tracking

GIS At York Catholic ► Development Tracking  Plans of Subdivision are circulated through the Planning Department  Plans are entered into our development tracking application  Depending on community / type of residential product being offered, a specific ‘yield’ is applied to each unit type  In Woodbridge a typical yield for a single family house (for us) would be 0.6  In Markham, the yield would be considerably lower  Yields, in conjunction with development phasing drives the enrolment projections for a new community

GIS At York Catholic ► Accommodation Planning  Enrolment Projections – produced annually ► GIS used to as a tool to encorporate and analyze  Census data (age cohorts)  Assessment data (community profiles)  Annual summer subdivision surveys (phasing)  Student distribution (historical knowledge  Boundary Changes  Plot distribution of existing students that may be impacted by a boundary change  ‘Boundary Option’ maps are a critical tool when hosting public meetings  Incorporate new boundaries into enrolment projections software in order to determine impact of new boundary on future growth  Accommodation Reviews

GIS At York Catholic ► Application Development  Address Validation Application ► A module within the Student Admin software that validates a student’s adderss and confirms their ‘home’ school

GIS At York Catholic

► Application Development  Address Validation Application ► A module within the Student Admin software that validates a student’s adderss and confirms their ‘home’ school ► ArcIMS website available internally  Used primarly as an address look-up tool to determine ‘home’ school of an address

GIS At York Public

Planning and Property Development Services at YRDSB ► Major Functions:  Accommodation Planning  Land Use Planning  Facility Planning

Accommodation Planning ► Staffing  Allocation and tracking of teaching staff through the review and provision of school level projections ► Capital Strategy  outlines the new schools and additions to be undertaken during the five years following the approval of the Capital Strategy ► Boundaries  School attendance areas or boundaries are necessary to create school communities that are appropriately sized for the capacity of each school facility ► Boundaries are usually split by streets, natural features and/or individual lot parcels

Land Use Planning ► School Site Valuation and Acquisition ► Applications for Development  reviews and comments on each new development application in the Region of York. A development tracking system monitors the number of housing units and schools affected ► School Site Designations  identify the number and location of school sites by ensuring their adequacy in terms of size, shape, topography, frontage, ownership and timing of avilability.

GIS at York Public ► Monthly geocode of student dataset for boundary reviews and analysis ► Use GIS to determine location and corresponding development plan of residential building permits from each municipality monthly ► Annual Geocode of MPAC records to establish number and type of structures within each boundary to establish yields ► Continuous update of residential development to ensure accurate projections ► Establish walking zones for schools to determine number of students within non-transportation zone

GIS at York Public

Student Yield at York Public ► Student yield = # students divided by # units ► Proportional factor that we apply to new development to estimate potential number of students ► Yield depends on type of unit: SF/SD, TH, Condo/APT ► Low density units (SF/SD) produce a higher yield of students while high density units (Condo/APT) produce lower yield of students

E.g. High Density in Aurora ► Yields are tracked for each high density building using geocoded MPAC and student data

Student Yields Yields vary: ► between municipalities ► urban /rural areas ► mature/new neighbourhoods ► age of population ► types of dwellings ► Yields are reviewed periodically ► Based on historical trends ► Our yields consider students choosing Catholic or private education

Student Transportation Services ► Student transportation is organized through a consortium that operates all transportation for both Boards ► GIS is used to:  Create and maintain bus routes  Determining eligibility based on ‘Walk Zones’  Auditing routes / Determining route efficiencies ► Uses Routing software – Trapeze / MapNet

Collaboration Between Boards ► Site Designations ► Student Counts by Study Area  Helps understand demographic shifts across the Region ► Development Phasing  Catholic Board relies primarliy on subdivision surveys  Public Board relies more on Building / Occupancy permits  Both methods have their pros and cons ► Data Sharing  Yield summaries  Boundaries

Future of GIS at the School Boards ► Web Development ► Demographic analysis  Encorporating mapping of test scores to determine relationships between testing and socio economic variables ► Program Location ► Impact of High Density / Intensification

Questions?