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When Muskogee Public Schools was faced with the need to completely redraw the school boundaries in our district, investing in geographic information system (GIS) software was an easy decision. Once the dust settled from that ambitious project, we realized our new GIS tool made available mountains of data that could inform a range of decisions. Here are four that we’re most excited about.
1) Add Transparency to Bond Measures
In a few months, Muskogee schools will put a bond issue before the voters in our community. We’re working with the county assessor to get home values and addresses in a GIS format to input to our GIS school locator, a public-facing portal. This will allow parents to tell not only where their child will attend school, but also to get a close estimate of what their property taxes would be upon successful passage of the bond.
Of course, any time you’re asking people for money, the more transparent you can be, the better off you are. The kinds of data we’re able to put out for public consumption will help voters make an informed decision.