How do I track changes to school boundaries?

ATTOM is one of the few companies that digitize school boundaries that make it possible to identify which school district(s) and which schools a property may be zoned.

School Boundaries

School District

A residential property is usually associated with one or more school districts. In some areas, a property is zoned to a single school district that applies to all levels of K-12 education. In other areas, its is possible that one school district might apply for elementary and middle schools and a separate school district apply for high schools.

School Attendance Area

A residential property is likely to be assigned to multiple schools using what is known as a school attendance area. The grade levels covered by individual schools will vary from one area to another. It is also possible for a specific grade that multiple schools include a specific property.

DimSchoolDistrict

This table contains information about each school district. The field UpdateDate indicates that a change has been made to the school district data, including a possible change to the school district boundary. Use this field to get a shortlist of school districts that might have had changes to the school district boundaries since a particular time.

DimSchoolAttendanceArea

This table contains information about each school attendance area. The field UpdateDate indicates that a change has been made to the school attendance area data, including a possible change to the school attendance area boundary. Use this field to get a shortlist of school attendance areas that might have had changes to the school district boundaries since a particular time.

Matching Properties to School Boundaries

PropertyBoundaryMatch

This table can be used to match properties to specific geographic areas, including School Districts. The field GeographyTypeKey has a value of '53' to match a property to school districts.

Whenever a school district boundary has changed then the value for UpdateDate in this table will change for all properties defined within the new school district boundary. This is true even if the property was assigned to the same school district in the old school district boundary. These assignments are based on the latitude/longitude assigned to each property, representing the centroid of the property boundary.

If a property has been assigned a new latitude/longitude then the UpdateDate is updated for just that property in PropertyBoundaryMatch for all geographic areas, including school district.

DimGeographyType

This table identifies the various geographic areas supported by PropertyBoundaryMatch and the appropriate value for GeographyTypeKey to be used for each. e.g. '53' for school district.

PropertySchoolMatch

This table is used to match residential properties to schools based upon school attendance areas that may apply to one or more grade levels.

Whenever a school attendance area boundary has changed then the value for UpdateDate in this table will change for all properties defined within the new school attendance area boundary. This is true even if the property was assigned to the same school attendance area in the old school attendance area boundary. These assignments are based on the latitude/longitude assigned to each property, representing the centroid of the property boundary.

If a property has been assigned a new latitude/longitude then the UpdateDate is updated for just that property in PropertySchoolMatch for all school attendance areas.