Linking Tax-lot and Student Record Data - Applications in School Planning

Richard Lycan, Portland State University

This paper is about school demography, school planning, and linking tax-lot files to student record data for better school planning. The tax-lot data provide information on such things as housing structure type, housing values, year built, square footage, and assessed land and structure values. The student record data provide such information as age, race, and gender of the students. GIS tools are used to link the tax-lot and student record data. Knowledge of how students are associated with various types of housing can help in understanding demographic changes and in providing better school enrollment forecasts. This paper explains and illustrates how this linkage is achieved and provides some examples of how the resultant data are used in school planning. It also attempts to provide some insights into limitation of the tax-lot database when used for other than its principal purpose, providing fair tax bills.