What is a school feeder pattern?

A feeder pattern describes a school-to-school path

An elementary school may feed a middle school, which may feed a high school. The relationship is directional: Elementary A → Middle B differs from Middle B → Elementary A. A school can have more than one downstream relationship when boundaries or programs divide its students.

Official assignments and derived relationships

A district’s published feeder chart describes its administrative pathways. K12 Atlas instead publishes a derived relationship layer using attendance-boundary intersections and district fallback links. A derived row is evidence of a possible structural connection, not proof of actual student movement or an official assignment.

What “SABS exact” means here

The feeder relationship summary separates 106,692 SABS exact rows from 1,210,958 district fallback rows in release v2026.07. “Exact” is the method label for a geographic match; it does not certify a current district-approved feeder route. Fallback links are broader candidate relationships and should be analyzed separately.

The NCES School Attendance Boundary Survey collected boundaries for 2013–14 and 2015–16. Its maps are historical. The K12 Atlas release date does not make those boundaries current.

How to check a proposed pathway

1. Confirm both schools’ identifiers, grade spans, and district.
2. Read the relationship method and boundary vintage.
3. Check the district’s current feeder chart, enrollment locator, and program rules.
4. Record whether the district confirmed the pathway or it remains a derived candidate.

Example: overlapping boundaries

Suppose an elementary attendance area overlaps two middle-school areas. A spatial process may produce two links. That does not tell you what share of students attends either school, or whether an address qualifies for a program. Open enrollment, magnets, closures, and boundary revisions need separate verification. See the feeder-pattern definition and join methodology before using the graph in analysis.