School District Composites SY 2015-16 TL 16

The National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Education Demographic and Geographic Estimate (EDGE) program develops annually updated school district boundary composite files that include public elementary, secondary, and unified school district boundaries clipped to the U.S. shoreline. School districts are single-purpose administrative units designed by state and local officials to organize and provide public education for local residents. District boundaries are collected for NCES by the U.S. Census Bureau to support educational research and program administration, and the boundaries are essential for constructing district-level estimates of the number of children in poverty.

The Census Bureau’s School District Boundary Review program (SDRP) (https://www.census.gov/geo/partnerships/sdrp.html) obtains the boundaries, names, and grade ranges from state officials, and integrates these updates into Census TIGER/Line. Although the Census Bureau updates TIGER/Line every year, the SDBR is a biennial update conducted on the odd-numbered years, therefore district boundaries for a given school year persist in TIGER for two years (e.g., boundaries for the 2015-2016 school year are included in TIGER/Line 2016 and 2017). Census TIGER boundaries include legal maritime buffers for coastal areas by default, but the NCES composite file removes these buffers to facilitate broader use and cleaner cartographic representation. The NCES EDGE program collaborates with the U.S. Census Bureau’s Education Demographic, Geographic, and Economic Statistics (EDGE) Branch to develop the composite school district files. The inputs for this data layer were developed from Census TIGER/Line 2016 and represent boundaries reported for the 2015-2016 school year. For more information about NCES school district boundary data, see:  https://nces.ed.gov/programs/edge/Geographic/DistrictBoundaries. 

Data and Resources

Field Value
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identifier 506bc419-6dd5-4440-a8f0-8de32ab424a6
issued 2020-03-20T21:58:43.000Z
license https://resources.data.gov/open-licenses/
metadata_type geospatial
modified 2024-10-19T12:47:02.289844
programCode {018:000}
publisher National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
publisher_hierarchy U.S. Government > U.S. Department of Education > Office of the Secretary (OS) > Institute of Education Sciences (IES) > National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
resource-type Dataset
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Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • AmeriGEO
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • CKAN
  • GEO
  • GEOSS
  • National
  • North America
  • United States
  • boundaries
  • elementary-school-district
  • polygon
  • school-district
  • secondary-school-district
  • u-s
  • unified-school-district
  • united-states
  • us
isopen False
license_id other-license-specified
license_title other-license-specified
maintainer nces
maintainer_email nces@ed.gov
metadata_created 2025-09-24T06:37:32.995834
metadata_modified 2025-09-24T06:37:32.995842
notes <div style='text-align:Left;'><div><div><p></p><p><span style='font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;'><font size='3'>The National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Education Demographic and Geographic Estimate (EDGE) program develops annually updated school district boundary composite files that include public elementary, secondary, and unified school district boundaries clipped to the U.S. shoreline. School districts are single-purpose administrative units designed by state and local officials to organize and provide public education for local residents. District boundaries are collected for NCES by the U.S. Census Bureau to support educational research and program administration, and the boundaries are essential for constructing district-level estimates of the number of children in poverty.</font></span></p> <p><font size='3'><span style='font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;'>The Census Bureau’s School District Boundary Review program (SDRP) (</span><a href='https://www.census.gov/geo/partnerships/sdrp.html' rel='nofollow ugc'><span style='font-family:Calibri, sans-serif; color:rgb(0, 121, 193);'>https://www.census.gov/geo/partnerships/sdrp.html</span></a><span style='font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;'>) obtains the boundaries, names, and grade ranges from state officials, and integrates these updates into Census TIGER/Line. Although the Census Bureau updates TIGER/Line every year, the SDBR is a biennial update conducted on the odd-numbered years, therefore district boundaries for a given school year persist in TIGER for two years (e.g., boundaries for the 2015-2016 school year are included in TIGER/Line 2016 and 2017). Census TIGER boundaries include legal maritime buffers for coastal areas by default, but the NCES composite file removes these buffers to facilitate broader use and cleaner cartographic representation. The NCES EDGE program collaborates with the U.S. Census Bureau’s Education Demographic, Geographic, and Economic Statistics (EDGE) Branch to develop the composite school district files. The inputs for this data layer were developed from Census TIGER/Line 2016 and represent boundaries reported for the 2015-2016 school year. For more information about NCES school district boundary data, see:  </span><a href='https://nces.ed.gov/programs/edge/Geographic/DistrictBoundaries' rel='nofollow ugc'><span style='font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;'>https://nces.ed.gov/programs/edge/Geographic/DistrictBoundaries</span></a><span style='font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;'>. </span></font></p><p></p></div></div></div>
num_resources 9
num_tags 17
title School District Composites SY 2015-16 TL 16