data

Navigating Seattle Public Schools data can be tough. While its recently updated website is great, all the data is separated into single .pdfs, with the only aggregated data in incredibly broad District Scorecards.

Digging deeper, I found a District Summary from December 2012. Focusing on elementary schools’ free and reduced lunch rates, and converting this data into a .csv, I used d3.js and borrowed heavily from this example to plot it all on a map.

I’m still working on getting the tooltip to display the school name and free and reduced lunch percentage – so if you know how to achieve that, let me know. Eventually, I aim to create a catalog of all the data locked up in the .pdfs to be easily navigated through dropdown selections, say of 3rd grade achievement scores, and displayed neatly on a map.

This ties in with an after-school tutoring program I hope to launch this fall in collaboration with Rotary and Rotaract clubs around the area. It will run twice a week at Sand Point Elementary’s library. If interested in that, also let me know! The Sand Point Squirrels will thank you.