The scope of the 2013-2014 School District Review Program (SDRP) is for state officials to review the Census Bureau's 2011-2012 school district information and to provide the Census Bureau with updates and corrections to the school district names and Federal Local Education Agency (LEA) identification numbers, school district boundaries, and the grade ranges for which a school district is financially responsible.

The 2013-2014 SDRP encompasses only Type 1 and Type 2 school districts as defined by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Type 1 is a local school district that is not a component of a supervisory union, and Type 2 is a local school district component of a supervisory union sharing a superintendent and administrative services with other local school districts.

The U.S. Census Bureau creates special tabulations of decennial census data by school district geography. These tabulations provide detailed demographic characteristics of the nation's public school systems and offer one of the largest single sources of children's demographic characteristics currently available. Information is distributed through the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

The School District Review Program (SDRP), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau every two years, is of vital importance for each state's allocation under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Public Law (P.L.) 107-110. The school district information obtained through this program, along with the 2010 Census population data, survey data, current population estimates, federal tax information, and tabulations of administrative records data, are used in forming the Census Bureau's estimates of the number of children aged 5 through 17 in low-income families for each school district. These estimates of the number of children in low-income families residing within each school district are the basis of the Title I allocation for each school district.

The SDRP consists of two phases – the Annotation Phase and the Verification Phase. In the Annotation Phase, the Census Bureau provides state officials with materials containing the Census Bureau's most current school district boundaries and information for their state. This data is reviewed and any changes in the school district boundaries or attributes are reported to the Census Bureau. The Verification Phase is when state officials review the results of any changes submitted, after the Census Bureau has incorporated those changes into the Master Address Files (MAF)/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) System (MAF/TIGER) database.

• June 2013 – National Center for Education Statistics letter is sent to Title I coordinators asking for designation of a school district mapping coordinator for each state and the District of Columbia.
• August 2013 – Mailout of program instructions and annotation materials to designated state school district mapping coordinators begins.
• February 2014 – Deadline for submitting school district changes during the annotation phase. We strongly encourage our partners to submit changes as soon as possible rather than waiting until this deadline. If your state is submitting a large number of changes, please send them on a flow basis rather than waiting to send the entire state.
• March 2014 – Review of verification materials begins.
• April 2014 – Deadline for submitting school district changes during the verification phase.
• November 2014 – Release of preliminary estimates based on the updated school district geographic framework.

Program materials for the annotation phase, including digital files, program guidelines, and other files containing school district information, will be mailed to state participants on DVD in August 2013, and they are also available on the SDRP website. State participants and local school district officials can view their updated school district boundaries submitted during the 2011-2012 SDRP by using the Census Bureau's TIGER Web web-based application that allows users to view their school district boundaries and other geographic entities online.

Note on Digital Boundary Submissions:

Procedures for the submission of school district boundaries from state Geographic Information System (GIS) files have changed. The Census Bureau will no longer provide school district boundary maps in PDF or paper formats for participants to review. Annotation materials will contain digital extracts from our spatial database called MAF/TIGER database - MAF/TIGER stands for Master Address File (MAF)/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) Data Base (MTDB). SDRP participants wishing to make boundary updates and corrections to their school district boundaries must use the MAF/TIGER Partnership Software (MTPS), which is a customized PC-based software application offered by the Census Bureau, free of charge, to support this program. The MTPS allows participants to review, update and submit all requested school district changes or corrections. The SDRP participants will also receive spatial and tabular data along with the MTPS.

State school district shapefiles, guidelines and the MTPS are available for download below:

Download Guidelines [ZIP]

Download the MTPS [ZIP]

Please contact (301) 763-1099 or email geo.school.list@census.gov to obtain the username and password needed to download the MTPS.

Please contact us if your state is interested in learning more about the MTPS. If your state is planning to submit your boundaries digitally with your own software program, please contact us as soon as possible, so we can discuss the technical and processing issues why the Census Bureau does not accept non-MTPS digital submissions for upload into the MTDB.

Census Crowdsourcing Tool

The Census Crowdsourcing Tool (CCT) provides states with a web-based application to view and verify their School District boundaries. For information on account registration and general use of the CCT, please refer to the CCT User Guide [PDF].

Shapefiles

The verification phase for 2013 - 2014 School District Review Program (SDRP) shapefiles for review are available for download below:

If you have corrections to report, please follow the instructions under the Annotation Phase Program Materials section.

Please contact (301) 763-1099 or email geo.school.list@census.gov to obtain the username and password needed to download the MTPS.

The Census Bureau is planning to host a webinar on November 7, 2013. The webinar will last approximately 3 hours. Additional information concerning the webinar will be provided to mapping coordinators in the coming weeks.

For more information on related topics, see:

• Population and poverty estimates by school district geography, or contact the Social, Economic, and Housing Statisitics Division of the Census Bureau at 301-763-3193.

• Finance data for elementary and secondary public school systems, or contact the Governments Division of the U.S. Census Bureau at (800) 622-6193.

• Decennial census data by school district geography, or contact the Population Division of the U.S. Census Bureau at 301-763-2464.

Local Officials, please contact the State Mapping Coordinator [PDF] for your state.

State Officials, please contact us via:

Phone:  (301) 763-1099