VISUALIZED AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS · DC
District of Columbia Public Schools
The canvas comes first: every public school district in District of Columbia, drawn from the federal boundary files. The data layers — enrollment change, funding, teachers, achievement — are built on top of this map, Missouri-style, in phases.
THE DISTRICT MAP
School district boundaries
Hover any district for its name. Boundaries are the 2024–25 school-year files from NCES EDGE / U.S. Census TIGER.
MAP IN PREPARATION
The District of Columbia district boundary file hasn’t been generated yet.
Run scripts/make_boundaries.sh to rebuild boundaries/district-of-columbia.geojson, then redeploy.
Source: NCES EDGE Composite School District Boundaries, 2024–25 (via U.S. Census TIGER/Line). Unified school districts.
One district is drawn on this map.
A note about charter schools. Charter schools enroll about 47.8% of District of Columbia’s public-school students, and they are not represented on this map. In District of Columbia most charters are authorized by the DC Public Charter School Board rather than by school districts: they operate outside the district system, are usually their own local education agency, and often enroll students across district lines. So this map describes District of Columbia’s geographic district system — not its whole public-school population. That distinction matters here more than in most states, and it will matter for every data layer built on top of this map.
TEACHER PAY
What District of Columbia pays its teachers
A first look, from the National Education Association’s 2024–25 salary benchmarks. These are District of Columbia statewide averages of district salary schedules; a district-by-district map is the next layer (see the note below).
$64,640
Average starting teacher salary — bachelor’s degree, no experience.
NEA 2024–25 Benchmark Report
$133,623
Average top-of-schedule salary — the highest step and lane a teacher can reach.
NEA 2024–25 Benchmark Report
1
of District of Columbia’s 1 school districts had salary data reported (100.0%).
NEA 2024–25 Benchmark Report
Source: National Education Association, 2024–2025 Teacher Salary Benchmark Report (April 2026), state tables ST-1 and ST-4. Figures are unweighted averages of district salary schedules; “starting” = bachelor’s degree with no experience, “top of schedule” = the highest step and lane. For reference, the national average starting salary was $48,112.
The district map is the next layer. A district-by-district salary map for District of Columbia is being built from federal finance data — NCES teacher counts and the U.S. Census F-33 school-finance survey — to show an
average salary per district (a derived measure, and labeled as one). Until it lands, this page carries the verified statewide figures above. For the fully built version of this theme, see the Missouri flagship’s
Teacher Pay page.