AZ District Uses Geovisual Analytics to Inform Tough Choices

After a recent override election for funding was not passed, Sunnyside Unified School District (SUSD) officials faced a difficult decision last school year. Enrollments were steady, but due to budget cuts and configuration changes, they would have to close one elementary campus and one middle school campus, realign boundaries and change feeder patterns. These changes could have been extremely disruptive, affecting more than 10,000 students in some manner and directly reassigning more than 2,700.

To make the transition go as smoothly as possible, administrators chose the geovisual analytics software from GuideK12™ to analyze and compare all of the potential change scenarios. GuideK12 helped to communicate the logistics and overall plan to stakeholders, both internal and within the community, leading to very little community opposition.

GuideK12™ is a web-based platform that visualizes data on an interactive map, linking student information with household information. This can aid districts in boundary planning, resource placement and student performance analysis.