School Zones

Inside schools (but the boundaries may not be accurate). If you are interested in a specific school, call them.

Thanks. I had found the map really helpful as we figure out which areas to look for apts to buy. I guess we can rely on what streeteasy + brokers say, and then call to school to make sure before we make any offers.

SE is often wrong. Insideschools isn't bad.

For example, 30 West 63rd and 61 West 62nd are not, and have never been (at least for the last 5 years) zoned for P.S. 199, but SE persists in listing as such.

SE also lists buildings as being in P.S. 321 zone when they are not.

The DOE map does show the zones. You need to click on the boxes to the right of the map after you've typed in an address. The map lets you pick zones, boroughs, districts, and it'll draw the zones with crude blue lines. But even the DOE map does not have the most current boundaries for the UWS after last year's rezoning.

Sorry to be dense, where on insideschools can I see zoning maps, or which schools are zoned for a particular building? Can't seem to find on the website...

The map with boundaries may have been removed as some districts are up for rezoning. District 3 may not look the same for 2011-2012 if some of the zones are adjusted. I wonder if the change on the DOE site is to reflect the notion that 2011-2012 zones are not yet finalized.

Newbuyer: look for a school, say "ps6". The page for the school will have "zone map" to the right of the scores, click on that. But as I said, these maps, do not reflect last year's UWS rezoning.

Joel: you can pick a mode on the DOE map which shows zone boundaries.

http://insideschools.org/index12.php?fs=32&str=6&formtype=name

Click on "zone map"

got it, thanks.

newbuyer, when i put in my address and chose 1st grade, it listed my zoned elementary school as the first on the left hand side. just to ensure that the site was correct, i entered other addresses that are on the "boarder" and they showed correct schools as well.

i would not trust inside schools as their rating as so off sometimes that it just doesn't make sense. i saw them give a school 4 stars for reading and math when the school was put on the list of "Need Improvement".

i'm with you when it comes to the maps.nycboe.net. i've been using that site for years and loved it. it helped me narrow the scope of my search to the zoned school(s) that i wanted to live in.

nyc10023:

Don't want to sound too defensive, but...

We were the first real estate site to be able to provide searching by zoned public schools in NYC. Other sites give "school district" info, which they license from national data providers, and is totally useless, or they tell you the "distance" from a local school, or which local schools are nearby. Both almost useless.

We have more current info than the DOE site in many cases. Check the DOE map for any of the rezoned downtown Manhattan schools and you'll see what we mean.

We are happy to correct zoning info whenever it is brought to our attention. It is *very* important to us. If you know of a building that is wrong, or rezoning which we are not showing, then send an email to support@streeteasy.com and let us know and we will get it right. We do this all the time as the source data is full of errors.

PS234 has been rezoned and the DOE map still shows the old zone. StreetEasy is more updated.

SE, please check the zoning for:

1) 61 West 62nd
2) 30 West 63rd
3) 15 West 63rd (btw, logical impossibility - how can 15W63 be 191 while 30W63 which is on the south side of the street is 199), you need to check all the northside buildings.
4) 101 WEA, check all the buildings south of 66th street, including the ones on the south side of 66th street, on the west side of WEA and west of WEA - 120RSB, Avery
5) north side of 70th street, on the east side and east of Bway, including the Coronado, Pythian, etc. all the buildings from north side of 70th to 72nd street

SE: it's great that you've provided a tool to search but if this is a key selling feature, it's got to be 100% right. I would hate to be that person who relies on your data to make a $$$ decision.

In addition, please check all the boundary buildings in P.S. 321, I've noticed a few times that you've included buildings on both sides of the street when the street itself is the boundary.

SE: go to http://www.ps87.info/site_res_view_template.aspx?id=012cf626-59b3-462c-a1cc-87ed35e2e836.

There is a link to a handy-dandy DOE street chart.

There is also a link to DOE D3 zone map. As far as 199, 87, 191 are concerned, it looks correct.

nyc10023: Thanks for the info. We will look into/correct those.

nyc10023: >it's great that you've provided a tool to search but if this is a key selling feature, it's got to be 100% right. I would hate to be that person who relies on your data to make a $$$ decision.

There is no such thing as 100% right in public data or in real estate data. Accuracy is a high priority here. In a case like this, the public references are not even close to 100% right, so we use multiple sources of data, and we rely on feedback from those who know, but we are always correcting.

Everyone is obviously advised to verify everything. They would be silly not to. School zoning, maint/cc, taxes, bylaws, etc.

I would tackle the square footage exaggerations first.

> I would tackle the square footage exaggerations first.

So what is streeteasy supposed to do here -- start measuring floorplans and correcting sqare feet? But sometimes the floorplan dimensions themselves are wrong, so by that logic SE needs to start sending reps into each unit to verify the floorplans. No.

This the buyer/renter's job to verify, not SE. The only other possibility is for SE to remove ALL the square footage numbers, which is not the answer.

This is exactly why we need to start having StreetEasy mixers at open houses. Between sidecars we could measure the actual space, add whatever percentage is the industry standard to bring it up to the "real" square footage, and update SE with the data.

> I would tackle the square footage exaggerations first.

Hopefully you mean we should have added square footage to the list of things the consumer (and anyone working on behalf of them) should verify.

We employ lots of techniques to validate data, but those tests are really designed to avoid the obviously/grossly incorrect.

But anyway, this discussion is about school zones... More on this soon.