School Performance Improvement: Planning with Data & Algorithms–A Case Study

Julio Carrillo, AICP, LEED AP, is a Senior Planner & Manager with Parkhill’s Planning & Interiors Practice. With over 15 years of experience, he has managed and directed projects ranging from architecture and green building consulting to urban design and community planning. Through his diverse knowledge of residential, multifamily, corporate office, educational, institutional, municipal, and neighborhood design, Julio, helps to plan and build sustainable communities. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Algorithms, and Geospatial Analytics are terms that sound technologically charged, with a great sense of complexity behind them. Introducing successful technologies into the world creates rapid development, with an organic interest of corporations adopting them in search of their benefits, resulting in driving the evolution and path of future applications of these technologies. Rightfully so, applications of these technologies are adopted at a slower pace in the public sector and more often in small towns and communities with a higher rate of economically disadvantaged populations. 

In the spirit of Building Community, this article explores data from school districts where academic success is challenging, shining lights on solutions that touch beyond the educational focus. The analytic approach of this study exposes the immense opportunity for public sector applications of these technologies, but also the integration of School Districts as key stakeholders in Community Planning.