Configure the look of your map
SchoolSite Pro makes it easy to visualize your forecasted data. The Forecast Display options can help you identify which neighborhoods are forecasted to experience higher growth, and which areas might be slowing down in growth as well. Having the ability to visualize where these areas of interest are can help determine where your District might need to add a new school, close an old school, or reassign an area to another school. Visualizing your data by focusing on specific grade ranges and time frames can help you plan more accurately for the future.
To configure the look of your map, click on the Forecast ribbon. Under the section titled Forecast Display, you will see four different drop-down menus:
- Start Year
- End Year
- Start Grade
- End Grade
Specify the range of years you want to view by selecting a Start Year and an End Year. For example, if you wanted to visualize the forecast for the next three years, you would set Start Date to this year, and the End Year accordingly.
Next, specify the Start Grade and End Grade for the students you want to visualize. For example, if you wanted to look at the forecast for only my elementary school students, you would select something like K for Start Grade and 5 for End Grade.
When you’ve configured the drop-down menus to your liking, click Apply. After a few seconds, you will notice your map change colors to a spectrum of green, yellow, gray, orange, and red. The green and yellow areas show areas of declining student population. The gray areas show areas where there is no change in student population. The orange and red areas show areas of increasing student population.
You will notice a legend in your Contents dockpane with a range of numbers assigned to each color. Each range represents the net number of students for the range of years and grades that you specified.