SABINS

Professor Saporito is the founder of the School Attendance Boundary Information System. The SABINS data infrastructure project is the first comprehensive effort to assemble, unify, and disseminate digital GIS data of elementary, middle, and high school catchment areas contained within school districts throughout the country. The initial phase of the project assembled digital GIS data delineating school attendance boundaries contained within 13 regionally diverse metropolitan areas (Atlanta, GA, Bakersfield, CA; Hartford, CT; Houston, TX; Kansas City, MO; Miami, FL; Milwaukee, WI; Orlando, FL; Philadelphia, PA; Tampa Bay, FL; Tucson, AZ; Washington, DC; Virginia Beach, VA), all districts within three entire states (Delaware, Minnesota, and Oregon), and any school districts that had readily available digital GIS data.

SABINS provides these school boundary files for use in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) through the NHGIS web application. These spatial files include Census 2010 redistricting data [P.L. 94-171]. For every attendance boundary, we provide tabular school-level information from the U.S. Department of Education's Common Core of Data (see Public School Data).

Integrating school attendance boundaries with census tabulations and educational data enables researchers and policy-makers to access a wealth of information describing the characteristics of children and families who live within thousands of school attendance zones.