Where can I obtain a comprehensive, current listing of all US K-12
schools (including principal name, email and snail mail address) in a
digital format usable by a PC?  I have found state-by-state lists, but
I need one list for the entire country, as the state lists are all in
different formats, and combining them would be a major effort.  I can
buy the list, if need be, but I cannot spend a great deal of money for
it.
Thanks!

Dear asking:

You asked for a current listing of all US K-12 schools. The most
current list is for the years 1999-2000, available from the Department
of Education. It is a zip file, in Access Database and plain text
formats. A description of the file is below:

"This file contains the names, addresses, telephone number, and
enrollment (membership) of the 95,334 public schools in the 50 states,
District of Columbia, and five outlying areas for 1999-2000."
http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/psadd.html

The files are available for both public schools as well as school
districts on the following page at the Department of Education:
http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/address.html

I have included direct links to these files below:

All United States Public Schools (Access Database Format):
http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/data/zip/mailsch99rmdb.zip

All United States Public Schools (Plaintext Format):
http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/data/zip/mailsch99rtxt.zip

I hope this was what you were looking for. If you need any
clarifications, please don't hesitate to ask. I would be more than
happy to assist you further.

Best Regards,
blader-ga

---

Request for Answer Clarification by asking-ga on 05 May 2002 21:23 PDT

Thanks for coming back so quickly, and thanks especially for the offer
to assist further - unfortunately, I have found these sources -
they're great for 1/3 of what I need - the snail mail addresses, but
they don't contain the principals' names or email addresses, which are
actually my higher requirements (email addresses being the more
critical of the two.)  I searched for some time this weekend myself,
without success, which is why I thought I'd give GA a try.  Any
thoughts?

Thanks!

---

Clarification of Answer by blader-ga on 06 May 2002 02:33 PDT

Dear asking:

My profuse apologies for not reading your question more carefully. I
must concur with missy-ga when she says that it is probably impossible
to find the email addresses of all the school principles.

I did some other searches in an attempt to find such a list, but
turned up nothing other than directories on a state by state basis. I
think your best bet now is to talk to people behind ASD.com for access
to their database. Since the ASD.com website does say that all the
information is public, it shouldn't be ridiculously expensive.

I've filled out the feedback form on their website in an attempt to
ask them about possible access to their database. I'll let you know as
soon as they get back to me.

In the mean time, I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for more resources.
Check back here often, you never know when either I or a commentor
might find what you need. My sincere apologies again, and thank you
for your patience.

Best Regards,
blader-ga

Sorry it took me so long to rate the question - I really appreciate
the information in both the answer and the comments.  Even though part
of the answer might be "can't get what you need" - the email
addresses, I still fully appreciate all the work that went into the
resources that you all did find.  Thanks again for all the help....

Try the US Department of Education.  They publish a complete list on CD. Good luck.

Hi! I'm sure that there will be many people who will help you with
this, but I just wanted to submit what I had found already that may be
of use to you.

The first thing that came up on a Google search for "k-12 schools" was
the Web66 International Directory of schools, where users input
information about their school to be included in the database.
Contacting this organization for use of their database may be helpful
for you.

http://web66.coled.umn.edu/schools.html

The first thing that came up on a Google search for "all k-12 schools"
was the American School Directory, which is a searchable internet tool
for people seeking information on all 108,000 K-12 schools across the
country. Evidently, they must maintain the exact database you are
inquiring about, so contacting them might not be a bad idea for a
start.

http://www.asd.com/

Their homepage includes a broken link to an IBM Business Solutions
page that has probably been responsible in the creation of the
database they use. Maybe contacting IBM you can find out about their
resources and similarly contract them for your job. The link below was
the one that was broken, but based on its structure, one can tell that
"k12" was a project of IBM's.

http://www.solutions.ibm.com/k12/

A further search for "k12" on IBM's main site produced a large range
of Press Releases regarding IBM's Education services. It seems that
IBM may indeed have the resources to meet your demands.

http://www.ibm.com

Searching for K12 produces the following page, which is actually
another listing of Educational Services Press Releases:

http://www.ibm.com/Search?v=11&lang=en&cc=us&q=k12&Search.x=37&Search.y=16


I hope that this information helps you get started on your search.

My Google Searches were:

all k-12 schools
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=all+k-12+schools

k-12 schools
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=k-12+schools


Glad to help,
AlchemistMax

Thanks to you both for coming back with comments so quickly - sadly,
the most difficult part of my need seems to be finding the email
addresses.

Alchemistmax-ga may be right - one of their underlying databases might
be what I need.  The web66 one is a self-selecting list, but the ASD
might have it - the only problem is, I haven't been able to bypass the
filters of the educational search engines to get a complete listing,
and it comes back as a page, rather than a file - with 108,000
schools, that's too big to cut and paste into an application to use
the list...  See why I offered a fairly decent price?  This one is
kind of tough.

Any other thoughts on finding the email addresses (or principals'
names?) would be most welcome - I've been searching myself for a while
this weekend; I appreciate that this really is a bit difficult to
find.

Thanks again...

Asking,

Finding e-mail addresses for every principal may prove impossible for
you.  It is an unfortunate fact that not all school systems are wired
for 'Net.  The district in which my children attend school was only
just wired two years ago.  Two other districts in my city have not
been wired at all due to budget constraints.

Personal e-mail addresses of school administrators and staff would not
be used in such a list, only the school provided one - and then only
if the school were connected.