Department of Education
Dataset Description
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/programs-surveys/sdrp.html )
obtains the boundaries, names, and grade ranges from state officials, and
integrates these updates into Census TIGER. 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 2014 and represent boundaries
reported for the 2013-2014 school year. For more information about NCES school
district boundary data, see https://nces.ed.gov/programs/edge/Geographic/DistrictBoundaries .
Organization: Department of Education
Organization URL: https://catalog.data.gov/organization/ed
Last updated: 2026-05-12T12:45:40.928465
Tags: 0ee4621b-38be-46bb-8360-219726022a58, United States, boundaries, elementary-school-district, geospatial, polygon, school-district, secondary-school-district, u-s, unified-school-district, united-states, us