December 6, 2010
Redlands, California—The recent signing of a comprehensive geographic information system (GIS) site license agreement with Esri allows the New York City Department of Education (DOE) to expand its use of ArcGIS software to a number of mission-critical applications.
"With 135,000 employees and more than 1,600 facilities, a system that collects and analyzes data efficiently is invaluable to our mission. GIS will go a long way toward helping our schools manage an enormous amount of data, and we're thrilled about the initiative," said Ted Brodheim, chief information officer at the New York City Department of Education.
Geographic science and spatial analysis will add value to the mission-critical business systems maintained by the DOE, allowing its administrators to understand their business challenges better, make effective decisions, operate efficiently, and communicate their decisions clearly.
One early example of success is a newly revised Web application available to the public. Based on Esri's ArcGIS system, DOE's IT group recently published an update to its popular School Search tool, which now receives more than 5,000 hits per day. Providing a detailed location map for each school as well as descriptive information and links to related New York City public transportation maps, the application has proved to be very popular with secondary school students and their parents. One of the next applications for the IT group is planning and optimizing busing for special-needs students. Future applications include facilities management, school/student safety, demographics, and capital planning.
In the future, the district will work to incorporate GIS instruction in the classroom. "Using GIS, students in all grades can explore and analyze the world, integrating information, concepts, and skills across disciplines," says Charlie Fitzpatrick, Esri K–12 schools program manager. "Whether looking around the globe or focusing on their own block, GIS analysis demonstrates the patterns and relationships that make up their world. Building twenty-first-century skills establishes opportunities for their personal future and can help their community today."
For more information about Esri's GIS for Schools program, visit esri.com/schools.
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Jim Baumann, Esri
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