The Sarasota County School District has posted a set of new attendance zone maps on its Web site to help residents and potential home buyers quickly identify the schools their children will attend. The maps incorporate the latest Geographic Information System technology for users to see the entire district or zoom in on a particular street.
"For a long time, the district has wanted to do a more user-friendly map for attendance zones," said Scott Ferguson, School Board spokesman. "We developed it over the last year or so of working with the GIS system, and came up with these maps. We had a number of requests from parents, real estate agents and other folks to see where boundaries and attendance zones are."
From the district's home page, www.SarasotaCountySchools.net, users can click on the teal-blue Attendance Zones link on the lower left-hand side of the screen. From there, they can then click on links for elementary, middle or high schools to see a map of the county and a list of all the schools in that category. Schools are numbered on the list. Clicking on the number of a particular school in the overall category map brings up another map that includes the major streets and many secondary streets within that school's attendance boundaries.
In addition to searching by school category, parents can search by school name, street address or parcel ID number using information provided by the Sarasota County Property Appraiser's office. When the parcel ID number is clicked, an aerial view of the location will appear, overlaid by a green box stating the school area the home falls into.
The maps are in Adobe PDF, which allows users to zoom in for a closer view and search for words within the document. For example, users can search within the map for the name of their street. The maps also can be printed.
"These new maps will be a helpful tool for parents and other interested citizens," said Micki Ryan, a planning analyst in the district's Long Range Planning Department. "We created them using advanced technology to make it easier for people to see where the attendance zones are for individual schools."
The maps include new attendance zones, effective May 30, for Brentwood and Tatum Ridge elementary schools in Sarasota and for Toledo Blade Elementary School and the newly named Atwater Elementary School -- still referred to as School I on the site -- in North Port. Atwater will open in August for the 2009-10 school year.
Ferguson said people can call with specific questions.
"Say a parent wants to see multiple layers to see (the zones for) elementary, middle and high schools ... or specific kinds of maps. Some people like that better, a map vs. an aerial view," Ferguson said.
For more information on attendance areas, call 941-927-9000, ext. 31193.
E-mail: aklockenkemper@sun-herald.com
By ANNE KLOCKENKEMPER
Staff Writer