Opportunity Mapping
OUSD Opportunity Mapping: Year 1
Success in school and in life is influenced not only by academic achievement, but also by a complex web of social factors. Opportunity Mapping tries to untangle that web to show where conditions exist that tend to produce positive outcomes for kids, and where opportunity is lacking and the challenges for students are greater.
By using data to show where children live in relation to schools, health care providers, nutritious food options, recreation areas and good housing stock, Opportunity Mapping can help direct investment and initiatives that improve the quality of life for youth and promote regular attendance, academic progress and social, physical and emotional growth.
The OUSD Opportunity Mapping Project uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to map the distribution of school-based and District-wide traditional and non-traditional indicators of student
performance and community health.
The 2012 Opportunity Mapping categories include 50 layers of data, as follows: (# layers)
- School Sites & Enrollment (5)
- Graduation Rates (2)
- California Healthy Kids Survey (3)
- Language (4)
- Suspensions (4)
- Academic Performance & Assessment (9)
- Absenteeism (2)
- Health & Fitness (12)
- Selected Civic Resources (3)
- Demographic Ethnicity (1)
- Housing (3)
- Crime (2)
The map layers included in this second release of the OUSD Opportunity Mapping web application were developed by the RAD Opportunity Mapping Workgroup using the ArcGIS suite of GIS spatial data processing tools. To enable local viewing of this dataset, RAD has adopted a one map, many devices approach to managing and delivering the data. The single map application is embedded in a web browser based ArcGIS Explorer viewer on the desktop, and a mobile application on iPad, iPhone and Android devices.
This environment is an interim solution to delivering and democratizing these data to inform a placed-based District decision support system. Future development will include annual data updates of data categories, as well as further analysis of additional traditional and non-traditional indicators as data become available from within the District, and from city, county, state and federal agencies. Delivery of this application will ultimately be ported to a custom web-based spatial data viewer developed by the RAD Opportunity Mapping Workgroup, and hosted and maintained in the Cloud with query and filter capabilities, and security controls that enable varying levels of permissions to manage privacy concerns.
