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School Attendance Boundary Survey 2015-2016

Published by National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) | Department of Education | Catalog Last Checked: May 12, 2026 at 08:55 PM | Dataset Last Updated: May 12, 2026 at 12:43 PM
This polygon files contains 2015-2016 school-year data delineating school attendance boundaries. These data were collected and processed as part of the School Attendance Boundary Survey (SABS) project which was funded by NCES to create geography delineating school attendance boundaries. Original source information that was used to create these boundary files were collected  were collected over a web-based self-reporting system, through e-mail, and mailed paper maps. The web application provided instructions and assistance to users via a user guide, a frequently asked questions document, and instructional videos. Boundaries supplied outside of the online reporting system typically fell into one of six categories: a digital geographic file, such as a shapefile or KML file; digital image files, such as jpegs and pdfs; narrative descriptions; an interactive web map; Excel or pdf address lists; and paper maps. 2 015 TIGER/line features (that consist of streets, hydrography, railways, etc.) were used to digitize school attendance boundaries and was the primary source of information used to digitize analog information. This practice works well as most school attendance boundaries align with streets, railways, water bodies and similar line features included in the 2015 TIGER/line "edges" files. In those few cases in which a portion of a school attendance boundary serves both sides of a street contractor staff used Esri’s Imagery base map to estimate the property lines of parcels. The data digitized from analog maps and verbal descriptions do not conform to cadastral data (and many of the original GIS files created by school districts do not conform with cadastral or parcel data). The SABS 2015-2016 file uses the WGS 1984 Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere coordinate system. Additional information about SABS can be found on the  EDGE website . The SABS dataset is intended for research purposes only and reflects a single snapshot in time. School boundaries frequently change from year to year. To verify legal descriptions of boundaries, users must contact the school district directly. All information contained in this file is in the public domain. Data users are advised to review NCES program documentation and feature class metadata to understand the limitations and appropriate use of these data.

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Complete Metadata
@type dcat:Dataset
accessLevel public
bureauCode 
[
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  "018:50"
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contactPoint 
{
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  "@type": "vcard:Contact",
  "hasEmail": "mailto:edge@ed.gov"
}
description This polygon files contains 2015-2016 school-year data delineating school attendance boundaries. These data were collected and processed as part of the School Attendance Boundary Survey (SABS) project which was funded by NCES to create geography delineating school attendance boundaries. Original source information that was used to create these boundary files were collected  were collected over a web-based self-reporting system, through e-mail, and mailed paper maps. The web application provided instructions and assistance to users via a user guide, a frequently asked questions document, and instructional videos. Boundaries supplied outside of the online reporting system typically fell into one of six categories: a digital geographic file, such as a shapefile or KML file; digital image files, such as jpegs and pdfs; narrative descriptions; an interactive web map; Excel or pdf address lists; and paper maps. 2 015 TIGER/line features (that consist of streets, hydrography, railways, etc.) were used to digitize school attendance boundaries and was the primary source of information used to digitize analog information. This practice works well as most school attendance boundaries align with streets, railways, water bodies and similar line features included in the 2015 TIGER/line "edges" files. In those few cases in which a portion of a school attendance boundary serves both sides of a street contractor staff used Esri’s Imagery base map to estimate the property lines of parcels. The data digitized from analog maps and verbal descriptions do not conform to cadastral data (and many of the original GIS files created by school districts do not conform with cadastral or parcel data). The SABS 2015-2016 file uses the WGS 1984 Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere coordinate system. Additional information about SABS can be found on the  EDGE website . The SABS dataset is intended for research purposes only and reflects a single snapshot in time. School boundaries frequently change from year to year. To verify legal descriptions of boundaries, users must contact the school district directly. All information contained in this file is in the public domain. Data users are advised to review NCES program documentation and feature class metadata to understand the limitations and appropriate use of these data.
distribution 
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identifier a625e16d-13aa-449d-9432-420798fe2e12
issued 2020-03-21T13:49:19.000Z
keyword 
[
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  "United States",
  "attendance-zones",
  "ccd",
  "common-core-of-data",
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  "geospatial",
  "k-12",
  "lea",
  "local-education-agency",
  "national-center-for-education-statistics",
  "nces",
  "public-school-locations",
  "public-schools",
  "sabs",
  "school-attendance-boundary-survey",
  "school-boundaries",
  "u-s-census-bureau",
  "united-states",
  "us-census-bureau"
]
landingPage https://data-nces.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/nces::school-attendance-boundary-survey-2015-2016
license https://resources.data.gov/open-licenses/
modified 2026-05-12T12:43:50.916606
programCode 
[
  "018:107"
]
publisher 
{
  "name": "National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)",
  "@type": "org:Organization"
}
rights other-license-specified; other-license-specified
spatial -179.2311,18.8655,179.8597,71.4411
theme 
[
  "geospatial"
]
title School Attendance Boundary Survey 2015-2016

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