Maponics continues to pioneer GIS data products and is the first to provide School Attendance Zones Boundaries as part of a comprehensive dataset that includes not only school attendance zones but nationwide school district boundaries and public and private school locations and profiles.

A huge undertaking for Maponics is their newly released School Attendance Zones Boundaries. Darrin Clement filled me in on the product which is included in their Maponics School Boundaries product.

“Most people are familiar with the concept of a school district, those areas governed by some local government, usually a school board,” said Clement. “Within a school district there might be multiple elementary schools and so the challenge for people trying to buy a home, they may know that the area in which they are considering buying a home is in a good school district overall. Out of five elementary schools there are only two of them that are good so I make sure I buy a home so my kids can go to that school and those are governed by what are called school attendance zones. That’s what we have now mapped out. Customers in the real estate space are pleased as it will attract new consumers to their websites and is an additional tool in determining what homes to buy.”

In most cases, if a school district has five elementary schools, the households that go to each school are based on location, said Clement.  In most cases the school district has done some level of mapping themselves, so usually Maponics establishes a strong relationship with that school district so they give them that information and then they digitize it.

“From a school district standpoint we have the entire U.S.; from a school attendance zone standpoint, we’ve got about 20 percent of the student population mapped out. We have the information – how many students attend certain schools,” said Clement.

An example is in Miami, where there might be 10 school districts in the county, but within those districts there might be hundreds of school attendance zones. You’ve got different attendance zones for elementary school than middle school than high school and they don’t always overlap properly. “By the time we’re done, there will be about 120,000 school attendance zones, whereas I think there are only 15,000 or so school districts,” said Clement. “And there are cases where it’s a single zone district, in small communities, therefore the district is the attendance zone.”

For Attendance Zones Maponics has put the school location on the rooftop of the school. “By this time next year we’ll have 100 percent of the country covered at the School Attendance Zone level as well,” said Clement.