Making a Map of Delaware School Districts and Median Household Income

This is a map that uses multiple sources of data to make an interactive map with median household income by census tract (red boundaries). The Delaware School District boundaries are in blue. Several high schools are plotted on the map as blue points. The household income data comes from the 2021 Ammerican Community Survey. If you click on a census tract, you can see the median household income for that tract.

We can also make a map that shows the percentage of students who were proficient in ELA for each school district. This is an example of a map that shows the percentage of 3rd graders in each school district that were proficient in the Smarter Balanced ELA exam. Clicking on a school district shows the percentage proficient for 2019 and 2021. (No data is included for the Delmar School District.)

Map with Information about Student Profiency in ELA

How to create static maps of the Delaware school districts with {sf} package

The {leaflet} package is We can also make a static map that is easier to share with labels for different school districts. This is a simple plot of the borders of Delaware’s school districts. With the sf::st_geometry function you can plot the geometry column of an sf object. Once you have an sf object, you can add features to the map (in our case, the enrollment or change in enrollment of Delaware school districts.)

plot(st_geometry(boundary_schools))

School district enrollment in 2021

It is simple to use the scales::scale_fill_gradientn function from the {scales} package to create a gradient legend. This shows that the school districts with more students are in the more populous part of the state in New Castle County.

ggplot() +
  geom_sf(data=boundary_schools, aes(fill=ENROLL)) +
  labs(title="Delaware School District Enrollment (2021)") +
  scale_fill_gradientn(colors = rev(plasma(6)), name="", label=comma)+
  coord_sf()+
  theme_void()  +
    theme(plot.title = element_text(size=6, family = font),
    legend.text = element_text(size=5, family= font))

Maps with Information About Changes in School District Enrollment

As this chart shows, the percentage of enrollment that is Black students has declined in several of the school districts in lower Delaware.

This is the percentage change in enrollment of white students.

And the same chart for Hispanic students, which shows greater growth in districts in the SW corner of Delaware.

The maps only include data about public school districts. This is a table of the non-district entities and their percentage growth for all students and for different subgroups.

District Enrollment_2022 Enrollment_2015 Change_Overall_Enrollment Change_Black_Enrollment Change_Hispanic_Enrollment Change_White_Enrollment
Academia Antonia Alonso 658 309 113% −56% 247% NA
Academy of Dover Charter School 420 331 27% 13% 52% 100%
Early College High School at Del State 387 159 143% 198% 139% 17%
East Side Charter School 511 492 4% 11% −65% NA
Edison (Thomas A.) Charter School 709 767 −8% −8% −25% NA
First State Military Academy 484 15 3,127% NA NA 2,440%
First State Montessori Academy 606 286 112% 85% NA 140%
Gateway Lab School 188 216 −13% 112% 29% −67%
Kuumba Academy Charter School 664 468 42% 40% 3% NA
Las Americas Aspira Academy 1264 539 135% 112% 185% 28%
MOT Charter School 1399 882 59% 141% 52% 15%
New Castle County Vocational-Technical School District 4799 4662 3% −7% 68% −26%
Newark Charter School 2465 1952 26% 34% 81% 14%
Odyssey Charter School 2030 949 114% 136% 163% 43%
POLYTECH School District 1247 1220 2% 30% 49% −15%
Positive Outcomes Charter School 120 127 −6% 63% 100% −37%
Providence Creek Academy Charter School 721 703 3% 7% 30% −12%
Sussex Technical School District 1331 1604 −17% −19% 28% −31%