Back to SAG Winners 2002

Jefferson County - Public School District

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The Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) District in Louisville, Kentucky has been an ArcView user since 1996. In partnership with the Louisville and Jefferson County Information Consortium (LOJIC), the District received a grant through the ESRI Livable Communities Grant Series for Public and Private School Districts in 2000.

Under the direction of Dr. Alan Whitworth, Executive Director of Information Technology, and Dr. Robert Rodosky, Executive Director of Accountability, Research and Planning, the District began to explore strategies to integrate GIS into academic and administrative operations. At that time, Dr. David Wicks, with the JCPS Gheens Academy began the use of GIS in the district’s environmental education program.

Business Problem

The JCPS office of School-to-Career Initiatives, Diane Porter, Director, established GIS as a career major program for high school students in 2001. In partnership with Bob Forbes, University of Louisville, Department of Geography and GeoSciences, the School-to-Career Office and the Gheens Academy planned a summer institute culminating with the teachers attending the 2001 ESRI Education User Conference. The four participating schools, Central High School Magnet Career Academy, Doss High School Magnet Career Academy, Eastern High School, and Jeffersontown High School Magnet Career Academy offered GIS courses last year. Over 100 students and staff took courses on ESRI’s virtual campus; they used Getting to Know ArcView as a text, and worked on community and school based projects throughout the year. The School-to-Career Office submitted the career major program designed by Doss to the Kentucky Department of Education and it received approval this past spring.

The School-to-Career Office, in partnership with Greater Louisville, Inc., the local Chamber of Commerce, has organized an advisory committee for the program comprising GIS users, educators, and professional GIS developers. Audwin Helton, owner of Spatial Data Integrations, Inc., has been instrumental in the advisory group’s development, which has helped provide program equipment, job-shadowing experiences for students and teachers, curriculum direction, and internships for Jefferson County students. During the summer of 2002 four students were placed in paying summer co-op working in the field of GIS.

In addition to the career focus, JCPS, through the Department of Curriculum and Assessment in the Gheens Academy, has been promoting GIS as an interdisciplinary tool to learn the core subjects of Science and Social Studies. Over the past four years, 24 professional development sessions have been offered to help teachers integrate GIS into their daily curriculum. Several examples of projects are:

· Outdoor classrooms: Teachers are using GIS to help develop their outdoor classrooms though a district created templates using LOJIC data.

· Watershed analysis: Over the past years, the district has worked with the University of Louisville to develop programs to have students understand and work with local watersheds.

· Biodiversity education: This summer the district is working with our state fish and wildlife agency and the University of Kentucky to develop biodiversity curriculum based the USGS GAP data.

· Elementary Geographic Information Packets. The district is going to require three weeks of map study as a component of the fourth grade curriculum. Using material from USGS and the ESRI K12 CD, teachers will explore both hard and computerized maps.

In the administrative arena, the Office of Accountability, Research and Planning is using GIS in analysis of attendance patterns, in attendance boundaries, and in evaluation of federal grants. The department of facilities management is using GIS for property management, improvement and new school positioning. The Office of Information Technology has used it to help lay out the districts fiber optic cable network and for development of aspects of its web site. Essentially, GIS can make analysis of data more user friendly for administrators, more understandable and more accessible which will increase the likelihood of data being used effectively

The District also continues to partner with ESRI. The organization has helped with the provision of textbooks, brochures, and software. In the District, we are striving to offer quality instruction to high school students with interest in the field, to encourage the use of technology for teaching the core subjects, to make our central office more efficient, and in essence to be on the cutting edge of education and technology. Truly, JCPS is a GIS user on the move!

GIS highlights in the Jefferson County Public Schools

· A collaborative spirit between JCPS schools, central office, the University Of Louisville and the community in developing a far-reaching curriculum and administrative tool.

· The development and approval of a new career pathway that students can take in high school, in which students become involved in a career path, but also earn college credits at the University of Louisville.

· Successful placement of students in GIS internships and job placement programs.

· The use of GIS as an interdisciplinary tool to learn the core subjects of Science and Social Studies

· Increased efficiency of the management of the facilities and programs of the Jefferson County Public Schools.

Technology Implemented

ArcView GIS

Development Team Biography

Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS)
· Consortium of GIS users, educators, and professional GIS developers