- October 31, 2024
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When will the Flagler County School District need to build a new school — and, when it does, where will it be, and what age groups would it serve? Should the district adjust internal boundaries through rezoning to shift which students would be zoned for which school?
These are questions that require data, and the district is considering how best to acquire, present and analyze it. At a workshop Oct. 15, School Board members considered one potential tool: the hiring of an outside firm to conduct a study that would examine demographic trends within the city, consider proposed development plans, and use geographic information system, or GIS, software to map that information in an accessible, and updatable, way.
"We feel that it's important to known what we have, where we’re going," school district Facilities Director Dave Freeman said at the workshop as he presented to the board a demographic study proposal submitted to the district by the Davis Demographics firm. Other school districts that have had such studies performed include Brevard, Osceola and Seminole, he said.
Davis quoted the district $23,900 for the study. It would include 10-year forecasts and involve two site visits by Davis staff, who would met with planners from the court yarn local cities to gather information that would be plugged into the program, which runs on the ArcGIS mapping software platform.
The information, plugged into the mapping software, would let the district see where all its current students are and where future students are likely to live, and to be able to play with moving lines on the map to see what the effects would be, said School Board Attorney Kristy Gavin.
"It gives us the demographics ... it would allow us to know whether or not with those changes to the mapping that we were proposing, whether or not we're remaining consistent with respect to what our community population looks like," Gavin said.
Board member Colleen Conklin, who is out of the state and attended the meeting via conference call, was supportive of the proposal.
"Using technology like this is, in my opinion, critical, because it captures the demographics of the students and it is fairly realtime," she said.
She had some questions: Would the study take into account the developments that have already been proposed, but have not yet been constricted — some of which have been sitting vacant for years, but may start construction coming years? And would there be charges for updating the data?
Freeman said the study would involve those developments and that the district would be able to control and update the data.
The cost gave board member Trevor Tucker pause.
"Are we going to use that software often?" he asked. "Since I’ve been on the board, I’ve heard about rezoning, and it’s never happened."
"You’re 100% right Trevor, but I think it’s also because we don’t have the information," Conklin said.
Gavin said the study could be used for site planning as well as rezoning.
“This gives us the true and numbers on what is coming online ... so we’re a little bit better prepared," she said.
Tucker said the district's population growth has been relatively flat for a number of years.
"I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem that this is the time," he said.
Board member Andy Dance asked if the GIS component of the study would be something that he county government might be able to help the school district with.
Freeman said the project would be time-intensive, and county staff wouldn't have time to handle it.
The proposal will return to the school board for a decision at a future meeting.
