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Case Study Volusia County Schools

Snapshot

Students Transported: 28,000, including 8,000 with special needs
Number of Vehicles:   300
Number of Routes:   250 3-tiered routes
Number of schools:   70
IT Environment:   Windows NT, 6 workstations
Trapeze Products Used: MapNet NT, Redistricting module, Web module

Business Problem

Every year school districts are faced with the task of planning for new school openings and an increase in the number of students moving into the district, and most are required to develop multiple scenarios with different boundaries for the most cost-effective solution to redistricting.

In 1997, the Volusia County Schools in Deland, FL had three new elementary schools opening and needed to rezone a total of nine schools with 10,000 students. This process would typically require three or four months of manual rezoning to present redistricting choices to the board. The district also wanted to involve parents in the process and keep the students from each neighborhood together while using natural boundaries for redistricting.

Goals

Volusia needed an automated solution that would significantly decrease its redistricting timeframe and generate scenarios with accurate cost information for the board’s review.

The district also wanted parents to be involved in the process and needed to create maps that could be easily viewed by parents at the school board meetings.

Solution

Volusia had been using Trapeze MapNet for its routing and scheduling since 1990. Given its success with the software, the MapNet Redistricting add-on module was an obvious choice. MapNet Redistricting modifies school attendance boundaries through demographic analysis of population units, creates “what- if” scenarios that can be stored and viewed at a later date, and provides geographic enrollment analysis and enrollment
projections with the click of a mouse. The software also generates maps, grade-up analyses, cost evaluations and “School Choice” plans.

Results

The first year Volusia used MapNet Redistricting, the process took just four weeks from rezoning to the board meeting, a reduction of two to three months.

The software automatically generated four redistricting scenarios for presentation to the board, a process that would have taken weeks by hand.

MapNet Redistricting also allowed Volusia to change and adjust the boundaries based on feedback from the community. This allowed the staff to allocate their time to other duties instead of being solely focused on redistricting.

MapNet Redistricting automatically generated accurate cost estimates for every scenario, and high-quality maps replaced traditional hand-colored versions giving parents and the board better materials for review and comment.

Bottom Line

After five school years and the opening of at least one new facility each year, MapNet Redistricting has proven to be a powerful tool in assisting Volusia with major redistricting projects as well as the minor adjustments required through the year.

The software has saved the district countless man-hours, while improving the quality and accuracy of its scenarios and analyses. Parents are also satisfied with the increased opportunity to provide input on boundary location.