Great Schools Scraper

Scrape 100,000+ US public schools from the NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) dataset. Search schools by name, city, state, or grade level — or look up specific schools by their NCES ID. Get enrollment numbers, teacher counts, grade ranges, school type, district ID, GPS coordinates, phone number, and website.

What you get

Each record includes:

Field	Description
ncesId	NCES school ID (unique national identifier)
name	Official school name
address	Street address
city, state	Location
zip	ZIP code
county	County name
phone	School phone number
website	School or district website
level	Grade level (ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE, HIGH, SECONDARY, etc.)
schoolType	School type (Regular public, Charter, Special education, etc.)
enrollment	Total student enrollment
fullTimeTeachers	Number of full-time teachers
startGrade	Lowest grade offered (e.g. KG, 01)
endGrade	Highest grade offered (e.g. 05, 12)
districtId	NCES district identifier
latitude, longitude	GPS coordinates
sourceUrl	Link to NCES data record
scrapedAt	Timestamp of data collection

Input options

Mode: Search (mode=search)

Search schools by name and apply filters:

{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "Lincoln Elementary",
  "state": "CA",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Filter by grade level:

{
  "mode": "search",
  "state": "TX",
  "schoolLevel": "HIGH",
  "city": "Austin",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Mode: Lookup by NCES ID (mode=byNcesId)

Fetch specific schools by their NCES IDs:

{
  "mode": "byNcesId",
  "ncesIds": ["064214011007", "360003101838"],
  "maxItems": 10
}

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
mode	string	Required. search or byNcesId
query	string	School name search query
state	string	Filter by US state (2-letter code)
city	string	Filter by city name
schoolLevel	string	Grade level: ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE, HIGH, SECONDARY, PREKINDERGARTEN, OTHER
ncesIds	array	List of NCES IDs for byNcesId mode
maxItems	integer	Max records to return (1–10,000, default 100)

School levels

Value	Description
ELEMENTARY	Grades K–5 or K–6
MIDDLE	Grades 6–8 or 7–8
HIGH	Grades 9–12
SECONDARY	Combined middle + high school
PREKINDERGARTEN	Pre-K programs
OTHER	Alternative and other programs

School types

Code	Type
1	Regular public school
2	Special education school
3	Vocational/Technical school
4	Alternative/Other school
5	Reportable program
7	Charter school

Use cases

• Education market research — Find all schools in a city, county, or state by grade level
• Sales prospecting — Identify schools with large enrollment for education product outreach
• Policy research — Analyze public school distribution across regions
• Parent tools — Look up schools in a specific area by type and grade range
• District analysis — Group schools by district ID to analyze district-level patterns
• Enrollment trends — Compare school sizes across states and school types
• School comparison — Look up specific schools by NCES ID for detailed information

Finding NCES IDs

NCES IDs can be found in:

• The NCES School Search tool
• State education department websites
• District rosters and public data portals
• Previous scrapes of this actor (the ncesId field)

FAQ

Is this free to use? Yes — no API key or credentials required. Data is sourced from the publicly accessible NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) dataset via OpenDataSoft.

How many schools are in the dataset? Over 100,000 US public schools across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Is private school data included? The dataset primarily covers public schools. Some charter and alternative schools are included.

How current is the data? The dataset is periodically updated from NCES records. Most records reflect data from 2019–2022.

What does NCES mean? NCES is the National Center for Education Statistics — the primary federal agency for collecting and analyzing educational data in the United States, part of the US Department of Education.

Why are some enrollment numbers missing? The NCES dataset uses -999 as a sentinel for unreported values. This actor strips those automatically so only real enrollment figures appear in the output.

Data source

Data is sourced from the US Public Schools dataset on OpenDataSoft, which aggregates NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) records for all public elementary and secondary schools in the United States.