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 special-purpose governments and 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. For more information about NCES school district boundary data, see: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/edge/Geographic/DistrictBoundaries.

Collections are available for the following years:SY 2022-23 TL 23SY 2021-22 TL 22SY 2020-21 TL 21SY 2019-20 TL 20SY 2018-19 TL 19SY 2017-18 TL 18SY 2015-16 TL 17SY 2015-16 TL 16SY 2013-14 TL 15SY 2013-14 TL 14All 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.