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Public Schools, Wisconsin 2025
- Identification Information
- Spatial Reference Information
- Data Quality Information
- Distribution Information
- Spatial Representation Information
- Metadata Reference Information
Identification Information
- Citation
- Title
- Public Schools, Wisconsin 2025
- Originator
- Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
- Publication Date
- 2025-10-09
- Edition
- 2025
- Geospatial Data Presentation Form
- mapDigital
- Abstract
- This data represent Public schools, Wisconsin in 2025.[This dataset includes point location data for public schools in Wisconsin. The points are placed on or near each school building"s centroid. Out of the 2,274 schools listed in the attribute table, 2,154 have a physical location while 120 are completely virtual campuses. School data was pulled from the Department of Public Instruction"s schools database on September 5, 2025. This data gets updated biannually so for more up-to-date information, please visit the DPI public school directory.]
- Purpose
- This data is intended for reference and mapping purposes, and may be used for basic applications such as viewing, querying, and map output production, or to provide a basemap to support graphical overlays and analysis with other spatial data. [This point layer contains location information for public schools (including non-district charters) in the state of Wisconsin 2024-2025. Data is current as of September 5 , 2025.]
- Temporal Extent
- Time Period
- Begin
- 2025-01-01T00:00:00
- End
- 2025-10-09T00:00:00
- Bounding Box
- West
- -92.902428
- East
- -86.84909
- North
- 46.818066
- South
- 42.468581
- ISO Topic Category
- society
- Place Keyword
-
Wisconsin
- Place Keyword Thesaurus
- Resource Constraints
- Use Limitation
- [The layer is intended for your reference use only. It contains the best information the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has to date, but no guarantee of accuracy is made. It should not be used for any land transactions, financial decisions, taxation, surveying, or other similar uses. The DPI is not responsible for data that is misinterpreted or altered in any way. Derived conclusions and analyses generated from this data are not to be considered attributable to the DPI.]
- Status
- completed
- Maintenance and Update Frequency
- biannually
- Language
- eng
- Credit
- Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
- Point of Contact
- Contact
- Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
- Delivery Point
- 125 S. Webster St.
- City
- Madison
- Administrative Area
- WI
- Postal Code
- 53703
- Country
- US
- Phone
- 608-266-3390
- Point of Contact
- Contact
- Shelley Witte
- Position Name
- GIS Technician
- Delivery Point
- 125 S. Webster Street
- City
- Madison
- Administrative Area
- WI
- Postal Code
- 53701
- Country
- US
- shelley.witte@dpi.wi.gov
- Phone
- 608-266-3939
Spatial Reference Information
- Reference System Identifier
- Code
- 3071
- Code Space
- EPSG
- Version
- 6.12(9.2.0)
Data Quality Information
- Lineage
- Statement
- Data Source: The Department of Public Instruction's Wisconsin Public Schools Directory (https://dpi.wi.gov/directories). Initial locations were were geocoded using the Legislative Technology Services Bureau's geocoding service. This was to get the approximate location of each school. The school building centroid data came from the Microsoft Building Footprint dataset (https://github.com/Microsoft/USBuildingFootprints). Since the building footprint dataset is large and contains no identifying attributes, a subset of the features were extracted as school building candidates from the following process: 1) Features from Wisconsin's V4 Statewide Parcel Data layer (https://www.sco.wisc.edu/parcels/data/) were selected based on the Primary Owner Name field (OWNERNME1). Any parcels whose primary owner attribute contained the word 'SCHOOL' were selected. 2) Using ArcMap's Select by Location tool, additional parcels were selected if they contained the geocoded school points or were within a 100 m buffer of those points. 3) Again, using the Select by Location tool, school building candidates were selected from the footprints layer if their centroids were in the selected parcels. These candidates were exported to a new layer. 4) A point layer for the school building candidates was created from the footprint centroids. Using a spatial join, the V4 owner attributes were added for easy reference, Using 2018 NAIP imagery as a backdrop, each geocoded school point was viewed in a GIS and a unique school ID from the geocoded layer was added as a new attribute to the correct building centroid feature. Google Maps was utilized often to confirm the correct location of schools. If a build centroid was not present, a new point feature was placed in the approximate center of the building according to the 2018 NAIP imagery. Once all schools were matched to their building centroids, error-checking was completed on the school building centroids layer before doing a field join to attach the public school data. The attribute table was cleaned up and non-school building features were removed. Update (November 7, 2019): Completed new data pulls from the Public Schools Directory and joined to the most recent layer to determine which schools were added, removed, or changed. Also received a subset of schools that had district-submitted changes to a school's physical address. The added schools and schools with address changes were geocoded, added to GIS environment, and moved to their school building centroid (or approximate centroid). The newly geocoded layer was merged with the current school points layer and all attributes were updated to match the information from the most recent directory data pull. Latitude and Longitude coordinates are in the WGS 1984 coordinate system. Update (August 14, 2020; February 1, 2021; August 5, 2021; February 15, 2022; February 2023; August 2023; February 8, 2024; October 9,2025) Pulled public school data from the DPI's Data Warehouse. Determined which schools were new, closed, or had relocated. Removed closed schools and geocoded addresses for new and relocated schools using the Legislative Technology Services Bureau's GeoLocator geocoding service. Verified building centroid locations. Updated rest of attribute fields using current school data. Used spatial join to add Wisconsin Assembly, Senate, US Congressional, (physical) County, and Locale attributes to the table.
- Process Step
- Description
- Process Date
- 2025-10-09T00:00:00
Distribution Information
- Format Name
- File Geodatabase Feature Class
- Format Version
- 1.0
- Distributor
- Online Access
- https://data-wi-dpi.opendata.arcgis.com/maps/WI-DPI::public-schools-wisconsin-2025
- Protocol
- WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
- Name
- WI DPI Open Data - Public School, Wisconsin
- Function
- information
Spatial Representation Information
- Vector
- Topology Level
- geometryOnly
- Vector Object Type
- point
- Vector Object Count
- 2307
Metadata Reference Information
- Hierarchy Level
- dataset
- Metadata File Identifier
- 575ABE6B-BB14-428C-9A07-88ABD8C2A292
- Metadata Point of Contact
- Name
- Shelley Witte
- Position Name
- GIS Technician
- Delivery Point
- 125 S. Webster Street
- City
- Madison
- Administrative Area
- WI
- Postal Code
- 53701
- Country
- US
- shelley.witte@dpi.wi.gov
- Phone
- 608-266-3939
- Metadata Point of Contact
- Name
- Arthur H. Robinson Map Library
- Position Name
- Metadata Technician
- Delivery Point
- 550 N. Park Street
- City
- Madison
- Administrative Area
- WI
- Postal Code
- 53706
- Country
- US
- askmap@library.wisc.edu
- Phone
- (608) 262-1471
- Metadata Date Stamp
- 2025-10-09
- Metadata Standard Name
- ISO 19139 Geographic Information - Metadata - Implementation Specification
- Metadata Standard Version
- 2007
- Character Set
- utf8
