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Cornell Program on Applied Demographics
DISCLAIMER

Census 2020: What State and Local governments need to Know

 

School District Boundaries

The Census Bureau creates special tabulations of 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).

School District Review Program (SDRP)

The School District Review Program (SDRP), conducted by the 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. In the Verification Phase, state officials review the results of any changes submitted, after the Census Bureau has incorporated those changes into the Master Address File (MAF)/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) System.

More information on the School District Review Program can be found here.

2020 School District Boundaries

The 2019-2020 School District Review Program will be utilized to inform the Census Bureau on the School District Boundaries to use in the publication of the 2020 Census results. During 2019 the Title I coordinators will be asked for designation of a school district mapping coordinator for each state and the District of Columbia.

Last modified: February 2, 2018