This dataset attempts to represent the point locations of every educational program in the state of Minnesota that is currently operational and reporting to the Minnesota Department of Education. It can be used to identify schools, various individual school programs, school districts (by office location), colleges, and libraries, among other programs. Please note that not all school programs are statutorily required to report, and many types of programs can be reported at any time of the year, so this dataset is by nature an incomplete snapshot in time.

Maintenance of these locations are a result of an ongoing project to identify current school program locations where Food and Nutrition Services Office (FNS) programs are utilized. The FNS Office is in the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). GIS staff at MDE maintain the dataset using school program and physical addresses provided by local education authorities (LEAs) for an MDE database called "MDE ORG". MDE GIS staff track weekly changes to program locations, along with comprehensive reviews each summer. All records have been reviewed for accuracy or edited at least once since January 1, 2020.

Note that there may remain errors due to the number of program locations and inconsistency in reporting from LEAs and other organizations. In particular, some organization types (such as colleges and treatment programs) are not subject to annual reporting requirements, so some records included in this file may in fact be inactive or inaccurately located.

Note that multiple programs may occur at the same location and are represented as separate records. For example, a junior and a senior high school may be in the same building, but each has a separate record in the data layer. Users leverage the "CLASS" and "ORGTYPE" attributes to filter and sort records according to their needs. In general, records at the same physical address will be located at the same coordinates.

This data is now available in CSV format. For that format only, OBJECTID and Shape columns are removed, and the Shape column is replaced by Latitude and Longitude columns.

This dataset attempts to represent the point locations of every educational program in the state of Minnesota that is currently operational and reporting to the Minnesota Department of Education. It can be used to identify schools, various individual school programs, school districts, and libraries, among other programs.

Maintenance of these locations are a result of an ongoing project to identify current school program locations where Food and Nutrition Services Office (FNS) programs are utilized. The FNS Office is in the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). GIS staff at MDE modified the dataset using school building locations provided by the school districts and program locations from an MDE database called "MDE ORG". MDE GIS staff track weekly changes to program locations, along with comprehensive reviews each summer. Since January 1, 2022, 5787 of the 6280 records have been reviewed for location and attribute accuracy, and all records have been reviewed or edited at least once since January 1, 2020.

Please note that there may remain errors due to the number of program locations and inconsistency in reporting from local education authorities (districts) and other organizations. In particular, some organization types (such as colleges and treatment programs) are not subjec to annual reporting requirements, so some records included in this file may in fact be inactive or moved to a different location.

Note that multiple programs may occur at the same location and are represented as separate records. For example, a junior and a senior high school may be in the same building, but each has a separate record in the data layer. Users can make use of the "CLASS" and "ORGTYPE" attributes to filter and sort records according to their needs.