I have received three calls this week from planners who all tell me a similar story. I've been hearing the same story for five years from across North America. They are having an issue while performing various geoprocessing tasks where ArcMap says it is working but nothing ever happens. They are never getting that coveted green check mark telling them that their process is complete. The task never completes and they never get their [...]
This post from my LinkedIn was inspired by a conversation that I was having with two school planners yesterday. They were asking "how do we plan when our base year is the problem? There are so many kids missing that I don't know how to account for that." We talked through how she would deal with this but the answer I have for her may not be the same for you. The impact of [...]
I recently came across this article titled "What would the world do without GPS?" It explores just how deeply our world depends on GPS and how geography ties to everything we do. GPS isn't something we work with at Davis Demographics, but geography is at the core of who we are. Geography is key to planning and, as this article points out, impacts every part of life. Report: What would the world do without [...]
It is inevitable. There is no escaping it. Sooner or later during our SchoolSite training it happens. Eventually I will say to you “you have some work to do cleaning your student data.” I have trained administrators across North America and no one has been able to avoid the reality that so often our student data is not as accurate as we believe. Is this really a surprise though? Most districts have dozens of [...]
Davis Demographics is celebrating a very big achievement this week. We have become Gold Business Partners with Esri! This is no small feat and we are incredibly proud to be so closely tied to our friends at Esri. If you have spent much time with anyone at Davis Demographics, you have probably heard us talk about our Esri customer number, which is 265. That low three-digit number comes from being among the first organizations [...]
Arthur C. Clarke said “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” A superintendent once exclaimed “this report is like magic!” when seeing his school district’s attendance matrix for the first time. I told him “No, sir. That’s geography married to enrollment.” Click here to see the this attendance matrix. At Davis Demographics, we believe that geography is essential to planning. This means that our forecasts are based on where a student [...]
“We don’t have hard numbers yet but so far it looks like 25% to 35% variance on student enrollment.” This shocking statement was made by a school planner in Texas yesterday. I’ve heard 3 other planners in three separate states make a shockingly similar claim this morning. If this is happening in districts across the country, public schools are missing millions of students this fall. Where did they go? The answer seems to be [...]
