2009 - 2010 School District Review Program (Annotation Phase)

Attachment E: School District Review Program
Boundary Correction Information for Digital Participants

Attachment E: Boundary Corrections

2009 - 2010

Boundary Correction Information for Digital Participants
It is very important to avoid adding a line or editing a line unless it is absolutely
necessary. Adding a line may cause the MAF/TIGER Partnership Software (MTPS) to
fail if the line is not delineated properly. If this occurs, you will need to send your file to
the Census Bureau for repair before you can continue your work. This guide will help
you determine if a new line is necessary and how to best digitize a new line to reduce the
possibility of an MTPS failure.

It is necessary to add a line only if:
1. You will use the line for a school district boundary. Do not add a line unless
it will be part of a boundary. The Census Bureau will canvas the country
and add any missing features or neighborhoods during one of the various 2010
Census programs. Therefore, only add a line that you will use for a school
district boundary; do not correct disordered or spatially inaccurate features.
2. There is not a pre-existing feature within 30 feet of the line you want to add
(parallel to the desired line add). Use the pre-existing feature rather than
adding a new line if the pre-existing feature is within 30 feet.

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Adding a New Line
Remember, adding a line should be kept to a minimum. Programs for the 2010 Census
will add new features to the Census Bureau’s geographic database. However, if you need
to use a new line for a school district boundary, you may add the line carefully following
these instructions.
A participant, for example, may need to add a line parallel to the existing school district
boundary below in Figure 1. The green dotted line represents the desired line to be added.
In order to add a line, you must “stop” at every feature that line will intersect. If you
cross features without “clicking” to create a node, the MTPS software may generate an
error message. The following instructions will help you correctly add a line.

Figure 1
The green dotted line in Figure 1 represents the desired line add. In order to add this line,
use the ‘Add Line’ tool in the Line Editing Toolbox to add the first section of the line,
stopping at the intersection of the next line as demonstrated in Figure 2.

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You will know that the end node snapped to the receiving line when it highlights with all
its vertices and nodes. If you don’t see the vertices and nodes on the receiving line, then
click the ‘Red Light’ icon

in the Line Editing Toolbox and re-digitize the line.

Figure 2
Note, the MTPS has a predefined snapping tolerance of 50 feet, so if you find that your
new line is not snapping exactly where you would like, it’s because there are existing
nodes on our lines within 50 feet of the line that you are adding. Please feel free to adjust
the snapping tolerance to a smaller measurement while working in a large scale area (i.e.,
city center) or vice versa. To change the snapping tolerance, click ‘Edit’ from the top
menu bar, and select ‘Preferences’.

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Ensure that the open tab is set on ‘System’ and locate the section labeled ‘Snap
Tolerance’.

Set the snapping tolerance to your
desired unit of measurement and click
‘OK’.

The participant completes the line by adding the remaining segments continuing to “stop”
at every intersection. As displayed in Figure 3, the completed line has a node at every
intersection. This should greatly reduce the chance of the MTPS failing.

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Figure 3

The line is completed and
ready to be used as a school
district boundary. If you get
an error message, see
instructions on page 14.
The participant is now able to
use the newly digitized road
as a school district boundary
(see Figures 5 and 6 on the
next page).

Figure 4

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Figure 5

Figure 6

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The same rule applies if you add a line that crosses other features as well. You will need
to stop and click at the intersection with any feature to create a node and label the line. In
this example, the user has stopped at a face boundary (green line at the edge of the river)
to create a segment of a line. (See Figure 7 below)

Figure 7

The participant then adds
another segment of the line
stopping at the next face
boundary (green line in the
center of the river.)

Figure 8
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Note, if you have inadvertently added a new line that you wish to delete, please do
not use the ‘Delete Line’ tool in the Line Editing Toolbox! In fact, you will never use
this tool as part of the 2009-2010 School District Review Program. The ‘Delete Line’
tool is used by other Census Bureau program participants to flag lines for deletion (e.g., a
road that no longer exists). The tool does not actually physically remove lines from the
line coverage; it only flags them. If you wish to remove a line that you would like to
redo or just undo, please use the ‘Undo Geographic Editing’ tool located within
‘Edit’ on the menu bar to remove your last line edit.

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Lines with “daggers”
You may encounter lines that are distorted due to various issues that the Census Bureau
encountered when we uploaded spatially enhanced features using a new upload process.
The Census Bureau is in the process of repairing these lines in the Census Bureau
geographic database. Please do not attempt to straighten or fix the line in the MTPS
software. If you need to use a line like this for a school district boundary, use the existing
line. Fixing or altering the line could cause the MTPS software to fail. If the software
fails, you will need to return your file to the Census Bureau for repair before you can
continue your work. Please see the following example and contact us if you have any
questions.
•
•
•
•

Ms. Lyndsey Abel (301) 763-1114
Ms. Pat Ream (301) 763-9042
Mr. Ian Millett (301) 763-9038
Ms. Colleen Joyce (301) 763-5890

•

E-mail: geo.school.list@census.gov

The primary goal of the School District Review Program is to determine the
population of children living in poverty. It is most important for the Census Bureau to
know what roads or features bound a school district to determine population numbers. If
you need to use a road with a “dagger” for a boundary, use the road as shown in the
MTPS and the Census Bureau will repair the road in their geographic database, keeping
the school district boundary on that road. Please do not attempt to repair a road or feature
in the MTPS. See the example of using a road with a “dagger” as a school district
boundary on the next page.

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In this example, the road pictured below in Figure 9 is actually straight in reality but
appears to have a “dagger” in the MTPS. If this road is a boundary for a school district,
please follow the directions below to use the road as a boundary.

Figure 9

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Add the area necessary to use “New Road” as the boundary for the school district and
complete the boundary change. The boundary may look odd, but it shows “New Road” as
the boundary for the school district. The Census Bureau determines its population counts
using the real road as the boundary, and the Census Bureau will correct the road and the
school district boundary that follows it, in their geographic database.

Figure 10

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Do not attempt to straighten the road as displayed in Figure 11. This may cause an
error in the MTPS, which will require you to send your file to the Census Bureau for
repair before you can continue your work.

Figure 11
Here in Figure 12 the user has incorrectly added a line segment to correct a distorted
line. Do not attempt to do this.

Figure 12
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If the MTPS shows an error message, please stop working immediately. This error
will not resolve itself and continuing your work after receiving an error message often
will make the problem worse. Please contact the Census Bureau as soon as you receive an
error message.

If you see this, or other error messages like this, please contact the Census Bureau
Geographic staff:
•
•
•
•

Ms. Lyndsey Abel (301) 763-1114
Mr. Ian Millett (301) 763-9038
Ms. Pat Ream (301) 763-9042
Ms.Colleen Joyce (301) 763-5890

•

E-mail: geo.school.list@census.gov

Please ignore the following message:

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