The breakthrough CenStar Census Management System is a comprehensive solution that enables you to gain an accurate picture of district demographics, now and into the future. CenStar handles all of the data collection, materials development and printing, mail-out, data entry, reporting and archiving challenges of a school district census. Here’s how it works:
Bold Enhanced Data fills in the gaps
To ensure that all residences and families within your boundaries are accounted for, we combine the existing demographic data from your student system with Bold Enhanced Data, generated from the most up-to-date mapping data available. The result is a new database representing the entirety of potential students and families in your district.
Zero in on key information
Bold customizes the questions on your census form to focus on the critical issues that affect planning. For example:
How many new kindergarteners will be showing up?
How many potential transfers from private schools?
How many children with special needs?
How many ESL (English as a Second Language) students?
CenStar forms ensure strong response
The professionally designed, custom bar-coded CenStar census forms deliver strong response from district residents. In the two mail-outs conducted for a typical census, Bold has achieved total response rates of almost 60 percent – compared to the 10 to 15 percent response produced by most such programs.
The data you need to plan intelligently
Bold collects the census data from the returned bar-coded forms and develops a comprehensive database of eligible families and potential students in your district. More importantly, you can receive detailed reports that present and analyze demographics in a useful, actionable format. For example, we can generate maps that enable you to view, by individual zone or the entire district:
- The number of total households
- The number of students in a selected area
- Students segmented by age and grade
- Students by ethnic background
- School building assignments
- Selected test scores by zone
This valuable information aids in district rezoning, and enables schools to better manage vital resources.
Aidable in many states
Depending on the laws in your state, the CenStar census management system may be full or partially aidable. (For example, in New York State our program is aidable through the state BOCES program.) Contact Bold for more information.
