Mapping: A Method for Organizing Data about Your School Attendance Area.

This paper shows the school principal how to map his school district or attendance area to systematically organize and relate physical and cultural data into a comprehensive spatial pattern. Use of such maps is shown to make interactions of cultural and physical elements within the spatial pattern more easily seen and understood. Major sources of generally available information and some of the principal methods of observation which may be employed in constructing such maps are provided. A map of the attendance area of a suburban elementary school is developed in detail to demonstrate the specific procedure, and the completed map is discussed in terms of a projected future for the area under study. Maps are shown to provide such information as locations of community support for schools, neighborhood representation in school activities, socioeconomic background of pupils, parental aspirations, parental attitudes toward school, tax bases, attitudes toward school bond elections, and transient areas with high student turnover. (TT)