School Locale Codes, 1987-2000. Working Paper Series.

A school locale code defines show a school is situated in a particular location in terms of the size of the community in which it is located and the proximity of that community to urban and metropolitan areas. School locale codes are part of the general information reported by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Common Core of Data (CCD) Public School Universe file. This paper includes information on the history of locale codes; the definitions of codes and how they have changed since the original codes were developed; the original methodology for assigning school locale codes, metro status codes, and district-level locale codes; and the changes that have taken place in the methodologies. It is intended as a resource for those who use local code statistics from multiple years of the NCES CCD files. Locale codes were first used in the school year 1987-1988 data collection, but their definitions have changed over the years, and will continue to change as the need arises. (SLD)