The School District Review Program (SDRP)

The School District Review Program (SDRP) is a U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) sponsored program conducted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau. It is of vital importance for each state’s allocation under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as amended by Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, Public Law 114-95. School district information submitted through this program, along with the decennial census population, Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates, and current population estimates, are used in forming the Census Bureau’s estimates of the number of children ages 5 through 17 in families in poverty for each school district. The U.S. Department of Education uses these estimates to allocate more than $16 billion annually in Title I funds. The SDRP encompasses the review of Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3 school districts as defined by the NCES. Type 1 is a local school district that is not a component of a supervisory union. Type 2 is a local school district component of a supervisory union sharing a superintendent and administrative services with other local school districts. Type 3 is an education agency that performs administrative services for more than one school district, providing a common superintendent for participating districts. Respondents to the SDRP are the mapping coordinators and Title I Coordinators from the fifty states and the District of Columbia. NCES also anticipates the inclusion of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in the next three years. Mapping coordinators are designated by the state departments of education and are tasked with reviewing and providing updates for school district boundaries, federal school district local education agency codes, names, grade ranges, and levels to the Census Bureau. Title I Coordinators are responsible for overseeing the SDRP and reviewing all materials. There are two phases to the SDRP: the Annotation Phase and Verification Phase. During the Annotation Phase, the Census Bureau provides mapping coordinators with materials containing the latest school district boundaries and school district information that the Census Bureau has on file for their state. Mapping coordinators review the data and submit any changes to the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau reviews and processes the information submitted by the mapping coordinator and updates the Master Address File/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Reference (MAF/TIGER) System. During the Verification Phase, mapping coordinators verify that the Census Bureau updated the MAF/TIGER System accurately and completely with updates submitted during the Annotation Phase.

The latest form for The School District Review Program (SDRP) expires 2027-08-31 and can be found here.