Fetch Alaska school directory data — fetch

Downloads and processes school directory data from the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community & Economic Development (DCCED) ArcGIS REST API. Data is assembled from 4 ArcGIS layers: school enrollment view (base info), Alaska schools (addresses and type flags), district contacts (superintendent info), and school contacts (principal info).

Usage

fetch_directory(tidy = TRUE, include_closed = FALSE, use_cache = TRUE)

Arguments

tidy: If TRUE (default), returns data in a standardized format with consistent column names. If FALSE, returns raw column names from the API.
include_closed: If FALSE (default), excludes schools marked as closed. Set to TRUE to include all schools regardless of status.
use_cache: If TRUE (default), uses locally cached data when available. Set to FALSE to force re-download from the API.

Value

A tibble with school directory data. When tidy = TRUE, columns include:

school_number: DEED school identifier (5-digit number)
school_name: School name
school_alias: School alias/alternate name (from Layer B)
entity_id: DCCED entity identifier (from Layer B)
district_id: DEED district identifier
district_name: School district name
district_type: Type of district (Borough, City School District, REAA)
community: Community where the school is located
state: State (always "AK")
physical_address: School street address (from Layer B)
physical_city: School city (from Layer B)
physical_zip: School ZIP code (from Layer B)
mailing_address: School mailing address (from Layer D)
mailing_city: School mailing city (from Layer D)
mailing_state: School mailing state (from Layer D)
mailing_zip: School mailing ZIP code (from Layer D)
is_open: TRUE if school is currently operating
is_charter: TRUE if charter school (from Layer B)
is_correspondence: TRUE if correspondence school (from Layer B)
is_vocational: TRUE if vocational education school (from Layer B)
is_special_ed: TRUE if special education school (from Layer B)
is_alternative: TRUE if alternative program (from Layer B)
is_virtual: TRUE if virtual school (from Layer B)
is_magnet: TRUE if magnet school (from Layer B)
is_state_run: TRUE if state-run school (from Layer B)
is_youth_facility: TRUE if youth facility school (from Layer B)
superintendent_first_name: District superintendent first name (from Layer C)
superintendent_last_name: District superintendent last name (from Layer C)
superintendent_email: District superintendent email (from Layer C)
superintendent_phone: District superintendent phone (from Layer C)
contact_title: School contact title, e.g. Principal (from Layer D)
contact_first_name: School contact first name (from Layer D)
contact_last_name: School contact last name (from Layer D)
contact_phone: School contact phone (from Layer D)
contact_email: School contact email (from Layer D)
school_email: School general email (from Layer D)
latitude: Geographic latitude
longitude: Geographic longitude
website: District website URL

Details

The data includes all Alaska public schools and districts with community locations, district types (Borough, City School District, REAA), websites, open/closed status, geographic coordinates, physical and mailing addresses, school type flags (charter, virtual, magnet, etc.), superintendent info, and school contact info.

The directory data is assembled from four DCCED ArcGIS REST API layers:

School Enrollment View (Layer A): Base school data with names, districts, communities, types, websites, closure status, and geographic coordinates.
Alaska Schools (Layer B): Detailed school attributes including physical addresses, school type flags (charter, virtual, magnet, etc.), alias names, and entity IDs.
District Contacts (Layer C): District-level contact information including superintendent name, email, phone, and mailing address. This data is repeated for all schools in a district.
School Contacts (Layer D): School-level contact information including principal/contact name, email, phone, and mailing address.

If a supplementary layer (B, C, or D) fails to download, a warning is issued but the function returns base data with NA columns for the missing layer.

Alaska organizes schools into approximately 54 districts, which include:

Borough school districts (organized boroughs)
City school districts (independent cities)
Regional Education Attendance Areas (REAAs, in unorganized boroughs)
Mt. Edgecumbe (state-run boarding school)

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
# Get current school directory
dir_data <- fetch_directory()

# Get raw format (original API column names)
dir_raw <- fetch_directory(tidy = FALSE)

# Include closed schools
all_schools <- fetch_directory(include_closed = TRUE)

# Force fresh download (ignore cache)
dir_fresh <- fetch_directory(use_cache = FALSE)

# Filter to a specific district
library(dplyr)
anchorage <- dir_data |>
  filter(district_name == "Anchorage School District")

# Find all charter schools
charters <- dir_data |>
  filter(is_charter)

# Get superintendent contact info for a district
dir_data |>
  filter(district_name == "Anchorage School District") |>
  select(district_name, superintendent_first_name,
         superintendent_last_name, superintendent_email) |>
  distinct()
} # }