Template talk:Infobox school district/Archive 1

Archive 1

Map images

I've added four parameters that allow for one or two map images to be included in the infobox; see Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District for an example. The intended usage is to use mapimage1 (possibly with mapimage1size) if there is only one image to be used. Add mapimage2 (possibly with mapimage2size) if there are two images. I did the best I could with the code, but anyone with more template expertise is of course invited to make changes or improvements.

It's probably worth noting that I asked about the sensibility of doing this on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools, and it was pointed out that it probably would not be a good idea to tackle creating new maps for use in this box. Use existing maps! : ) --Hebisddave 12:45, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

There's a bug in the implementation of this "feature": you must have two maps or none; if you list only one map, the space to the right has [[Image:|100px]] in it. This needs to be fixed so that only one map can appear. Paschmitts (talk) 12:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Accreditation?

Why not have a field for accreditation? Anyone else agree? --Requenym (talk) 15:53, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and added the field. Feel free to change it/move it around. --Jh12 (talk) 14:50, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Note: On further review, I think it's best to use {{Infobox School}} for school districts as well. It has a more complete field selection and looks better. --Jh12 (talk) 15:03, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Contact number

This field should be removed- per WP:NOTDIRECTORY and potentially others. Phone numbers generally shouldn't be in articles as I've seen. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 04:18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. It has been removed. Truthanado (talk) 15:57, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

The inclusion of contact information and location, be it address, phone or web site, is a basic unit of information that should be included and is not in conflict with WP:NOTDIRECTORY. The field was deliberately added to this and other templates and has been populated in hundreds of articles. Shouldn't we have more discussion on this issue than two people talking amongst themselves. Alansohn (talk) 19:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It's absolutely in conflict with WP:NOTDIRECTORY; see points #2 and #3 in particular. I can think of no convincing reason to add that sort of contact information to an article. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I have however stopped my semi-automated removal of the field from the articles in which this template is used. My intent was partly to prevent confusion on the part of new users who attempted to fill in the field if it were blank, or otherwise fix it if the field were filled. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:55, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with removal. We might as well not have addresses then either. This is standard information which would be useful to anyone reading the article. The numbers need to be replaced.DavidPickett (talk) 17:25, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

School District logos

Could somebody update the Template:School District to include district-wide logos? I would do it myself, but I truly have no idea where to start. I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks so much! Killervogel5 (talk) 14:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

• I think I have figured it out. Killervogel5 (talk) 14:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Logos don't seem to be working. —Bill Price (nyb) 20:30, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Image fields

Could someone add:

| image          = 
| image caption  = 

fields to this infobox (from Template:Infobox School district) or an appropriate improvement. See discussion at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion#Template:Infobox_School_district. SBaker43 (talk) 03:59, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox School district, note the capital S, is basically an inferior version of this. Two important differences I noted are: 1) the box with the capital S uses image and image_caption, while this one uses logo and motto; 2) the box with the capital S has a closed parameter, this one does not.
I've added the closed parameter to this template, seeing that there are a number of articles on Wikipedia about former school districts: [1] [2] [3]. I'm not sure if those would benefit of an infobox. As for logo and motto, I have not changed them to image and image_caption as doing so would break over 600 implementations. I would argue, however, that image and image_caption are better names. Cheers, theFace 10:27, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Location

I think we should change the location section to say location (generally should be city or cities it includes). At least in my experience in the US most school districts are geographical entitites that cover specific areas. While they often have a district central office somewhere, this is not all that important, and what we would want with location is what the district covers.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:51, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment there are however some states where most school districts embrace whole countires (Georgia is the first that comes to mind, but Utah has mainly mono-district counties and Indiana may as well). Maybe it should be city/county or city/cieites/counties as the recomended solution for location. If it is a private school district maybe there is a seperate set of issues.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:53, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Additional Fields

It would be great to add fields for Number of Schools (in the district) as well as number of schools by type or grade level.CarpElgin (talk) 20:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• comment, number of schools seems reasonable. Number of schools by type seems more something that should be included in the article and is not needed in the info box.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Good examples

It would be helpful if someone would add some applicable examples of proper usage to this template's documentation. czar · · 05:33, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Y Example School District, a completely fictional example (with selected links to 'real' articles or URLs), has been added. It is doubtful that any real school district would ever include data for every parameter. Sample free labels and free text have been added.
SBaker43 (talk) 01:30, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Usage in articles about cities with education sections when the school district itself does not have its own page

User Magnolia677 (talk) and I have had a disagreement over where this template may be used. I was adding the template to a number of the education sections in articles on Massachusetts cities and towns. Most school districts (at least in Massachusetts) don't have Wikipedia pages, but even if they did the pages would mostly be stubs, which is why I argue that even though the template says that the infobox is intended for use only in school district articles, an exception should be made for school districts that don't have their own pages. Just about every Massachusetts town (and most localities in the United States for that matter) has its own section on education in the town, so it is or ought to be justifiable using the infobox there, especially if there is no corresponding school district page. - Jajhill (talk) 21:21 18 August 2015 UTC

Comment - My concern was that this template was being inserted into the education section of city articles. Usage of this template states: "this template is intended for use in school district articles". Magnolia677 (talk) 23:03, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

It looks like the "This template is intended for use in school district articles" usage instruction was added in this diff in July 2011. My interpretation is that the intent was to keep the school district template from being used on school articles. I think that preventing this template from being used on city articles (and similar situations) was an unintended consequence of the wording. Other than that instruction, is there a Wikipedia best practice that would prevent the school district template from being used in the education section of a city article? If not, I suggest we adjust the usage instruction. -Hebisddave (talk) 16:02, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't really see any harm in having multiple infoboxes on a page provided they aren't too long. Wouldn't it make more sense to create a separate article for the school district however? If there aren't any objections we can amend the wording. EyeTripleE (talk) 17:03, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

We could make separate articles for the school districts, but just based on my own personal experience, unless the school district is very large, the only easily sourced information about school districts are the data that you would put in the infobox anyway, and as a result, most the of those pages would probably end up being be stubs, recommended for mergers with other articles. That's why I agree that we should just make the exception in the usage instruction. - Jajhill (talk) 16:25 6 October 2015 UTC

Y Amended the wording slightly so that it doesn't limit use to school district articles. EyeTripleE (talk) 16:55, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

EyeTripleE, where and what exactly is the wording? - Jajhill (talk) 14:46 7 October 2015 UTC

Check this diff. EyeTripleE (talk) 18:03, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Undid the above change. This is not a consensus. Template changes, even in usage, are far reaching. There has been no discussion. An issue was raised a while back, two sides were presented. Someone agreed with the original poster a month later, the op responded. At that point, an uninvolved editor jumped in and made the change the original poster requested, without any response from the other party. There isn't enough to say there is even enough consensus here to make a change to an article, much less a template. What needs to happen a neutral notification of this discussion to be made at the main talk pages of the two projects involved, Cities and Schools, and enough time be given for all interested parties to respond. Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 19:27, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that this issue should be decided for each settlement or at WP:WikiProject Cities. It seems strange to blanket ban non-standard usage at the template level when we don't actually know the situation in the articles it may be placed in. If using the infobox in a non-standard way improves the article I don't oppose. That said, I would think most school districts warrant their own articles and some simple page creation and copying and pasting would resolve the issue. EyeTripleE (talk) 18:12, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Notifications have been made. The original poster added the template in question to virtually every community in Massachusetts. I do not see any info presented in the infobox that is even encyclopedic for a settlement article. We would not normally talk about budgets, staff, addresses, school nicknames...any of that, in a settlement article. What guidelines (WP:USCITY) suggest is that if there are a few schools, we list them. If there are many, we list the high schools and simply enumerate the lower schools. Detailed discussion of the school district is for an article on the school district, which as EyeTripleE stated above, should in almost all cases be notable. Every school district in the US has at least two reliable, independent, secondary sources....the state DOE and NCES. Plus much local media coverage. Notability is not the problem.

A little historical perspective on use of infoboxes on Wikipedia. There have been ongoing disputes about even including infoboxes on some types of articles (notably certain classes of biographies). These disputes have become contentious to the point of several longtime editors being blocked over it. Infoboxes are clearly intended to be an "eye-catch" and a summary of an article. They are not, and never were, intended to be used as section headers. The coding in them is set up so they properly format at the top of the article. Yes there are occasions where infobox NRHP is used on a school article, along with infobox school. In those cases they should, and pretty much are, merged. Any language that allows use of an infobox designed for a certain set of articles on another type of article would require consensus at the individual page. Use of an infobox anywhere but at the top of the article is counterproductive to the reason for existence. John from Idegon (talk) 18:43, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Replying to Jajhill's opening remarks of 21:21 18 August 2015 UTC, here are my Recommendations:

• If there is a dedicated school-district article, disallow.
• Split the page if you can do so without creating stubs, which means disallow on the remaining city or county page.

Once the splits are done, there will be 3 common situations:

• City-heavy article where the school district material would be a mere stub if split off: Disallow, it would be too cluttering.
• School-district-heavy article where the non-school-district material would be a mere stub if split off: Defer to local consensus with a recommendation that the article be split and the city article be expanded.
• Pair-o-stubs article where neither the city nor the school district would be Start-class by themselves: Defer to local consensus with a recommendation that splitting into two stubs and expanding them be considered.

In exceptional cases, existing guidelines may recommend NOT splitting an article that could be split into two non-stub articles. In these cases, look at what dominates: If the non-school-district content "dominates" then I recommend disallow, otherwise if they are about the same or if the school-district content dominates, I recommend defer to local consensus.

In any case, add documentation for template editors that they can no longer assume the page is only used on school-district articles, especially if they are adding categories (currently the only category is a maintenance category).

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:43, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Address for District Office

Should there be address fields for the district office as an alternate to location, like there is for the schools?

jbailey (talk) 06:00, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I would be in favor of this. EyeTripleE (talk) 22:56, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

You should now be able to include the entire address of the district office. EyeTripleE (talk) 19:47, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 3 March 2019

Please change the display title for the us_nces_district_id parameter from District ID to NCES District ID (note NCES is linked to National Center for Education Statistics). This parameter is specifically for NCES and there is already a generic district_id parameter which is displayed as District ID. Also, this follows in line with the formatting in Infobox school. Thank you Steven (Editor) (talk) 19:36, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Done -- /Alex/₂₁ 12:47, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Proposal to repurpose Infobox school district

At present, Infobox school district is used for school districts, mainly the US and Canada. The school district article defines it as "a special-purpose district that operates local public primary and secondary schools in various nations". There are school district equivalents/establishments/charitable organisations that manage multiple schools. For example, in England, there are multi-academy trusts such as Academies Enterprise Trust and in India, there are organisations such as Delhi Public School Society.

Religious schools which are managed by a Diocese/Religious Institute normally already have a dedicated infobox which will suffice so this would be for those "when there is no more specific template available" (description of this infobox). Oasis Charitable Trust for example is an exception as it is a UK charitable organisation with operations around the world; a multi-academy trust (under Oasis Charitable Trust) and a charity that provides services such as housing and healthcare, so it is using Infobox organization. The trust is currently mentioned in a section but if this was to be split into its own article, what infobox should it use?

Choosing an infobox for those that manage multiple schools is a problem already, some use Infobox organization (e.g. Star Academies), Infobox school (e.g. the Delhi one mentioned above) and then of course the ones without an infobox. I propose for this infobox to be repurposed as a multi-purpose infobox for those that manage multiple schools. This will keep things together and allow for consistency. The majority of the parameters in this infobox are applicable and in terms of the changes that would need to be made are straightforward - it would need to be renamed to a suitable name or do we keep its existing name? (a bot can rename current transclusions or it can be changed manually on a gradual basis) The heading "District information" would need to be changed to "Information". A head and head_label or key people parameter would need to be added. In terms of country specific parameters, there is already an NCES District ID for US school districts but if we wanted to add one for multi-academy trusts in England for example, a Department for Education UID parameter could be added. There are already free labels which will be of use. What do you think? Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:55, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

An infobox for multi-academy trusts is certainly a useful idea. It will take smoe skill to work it up sucessfully. Pontefract multi-academy trust uses --Infobox non-profit--. It needs some thougtht ClemRutter (talk) 22:39, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Sounds like what's really called for in the use case you describe is not a repurposing of the existing school district infobox, but a mask/skin to go over top of it just like Infobox academic does to Infobox person—it takes all of the input fields of the more generic template and adds a few more that are applicable only to the narrower subset, and rearranges things where necessary to keep related data points grouped together. With Infobox school district already on 2,800+ articles, if you try to rework this template in any meaningful way it's bound to foul up a not insignificant number of them and that's no good. I think ClemRutter hit the nail on the head, to end up with anything worthwhile is going to take a heavy dose of skill and determination, but I can't see a reason not to support the effort. Ping me if you get a pro forma version working and I'll do what I can to help work out the kinks. — ⚞🐈ℛogueScholar🗨₨Talk⚟ 23:25, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi ClemRutter and RogueScholar, what I mean by repurposing is so that it's not just for school districts but for anything that manages multiple schools. But yeah, anyway, I see you're talking about a wrapper but no need for a wrapper, just adding more parameters to this infobox and making the changes mentioned above like changing "District information" heading to "Information" would work. Moving this template to a new name wouldn't affect transclusions using Infobox school district as this would become a redirect and its parameters will remain unchanged. I don't think any issues would occur from this?

I have gone ahead and changed the infobox of the trust you mentioned to Infobox school district so you can see what it would look like. I have reverted it so it can be viewed via an old revision. The schools parameter is used to mention the number of schools and this is a perfect match for multi-academy trusts; both Get information about schools and the trust website mention the number of schools. I've had to use president, vice president, chair of the board, standard District ID and a free label for former name, as the parameters are not available and would need to be added but this is just to show you. With the changes mentioned above, it would work really well. Are there any complications you are seeing here? I must also note Infobox non-profit is a redirect to Infobox organization. Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:04, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

ClemRutter and RogueScholar, I have worked on the sandbox and have done Phase 1. I have added new parameters which are: other_name/other_names/former_name/former_names (interchangeable), religious_affiliation, uk_dfe_uid (dedicated parameter for multi-academy trusts), oversight with oversight_label/chair with chair_label/head with head_label (override labels) and executive_headteacher/executive_principal (interchangeable).

Coordinates is now linked like Infobox school, District information heading has been renamed to Information and mascot parameter which displayed as District mascot to Mascot. The location of the parameters in the information section has been re-arranged in line with Infobox school. No parameters have been removed or changed so this will not affect current transclusions. I have created a testcase page where you can see these new parameters working with a multi-academy trust example. See Reading School District where I have appended "/sandbox" so you can see the changes have not affected the template (only change you will see are parameters where its position has changed) - I will need to undo soon as it is in mainspace, but you can do the same for any school district by using preview and you can see it all works. Please let me know what you think and if a parameter should be moved, removed or added, thank you Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:21, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

I´ll look tomorrow ClemRutter (talk) 00:49, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Template editing is well beyond my comprehension. I will add here if we are making an infobox for private school management companies or organizations, we will need to have some parameters from Template:infobox company and Template:infobox organization. Financial stuff mostly. Incorporation type, key people, ticker symbol etc. Looking to ensure we show enough info that readers can determine at a glance whether the organization is shepherding their assets properly (in the case of an ngo) or profiteering in other cases. John from Idegon (talk) 01:00, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi John, sorry for the delay, was working on other schools for the last few days. That's a good idea, I have worked on the sandbox and completed Phase 2 initial. I have added three new parameters: legal_status - from Infobox organization, documentation says "legal status and/or description (company, charity, foundation, etc)" or should we have Incorporation type instead? registration_number - from Infobox organization, should I change this to registration_id or not needed? key_people (glad you mentioned this one, why I only added the head one instead of both I don't know) - as multiple names with positions can be added to this parameter, and head with label also available, I removed the interchangeable executive_headteacher/principal. The changes can be seen in the testcase page. In terms of financial parameters, which specific ones should we add?

Two more questions and for anyone interested: Should we keep the multiple headings or go for one like Infobox school? As this infobox will need to be renamed, how about Infobox school management? Steven (Editor) (talk) 02:02, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

I having a look at it this eveningClemRutter (talk) 16:33, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

United Learning and Northern Education Trust present a few challenges- the first appears to be the operational arm of two charities and the second has set up a formal partnership 'Northern Alliance of Trusts'.

Do we need to say number of primary schools/secondary/all-through/special? Not sure.

Do we need a navbox to showing all the schools in their care? I think not- but a link to an existing navbox- maybe.bbb

Are we looking solely at Academy Trusts- where Infobox academy trust seems appropriate or something broader and using as Infobox academy trust as a redirect. I like to keep it simple for new editors who are already struggling with WP:COI WP:NPOV and WP:RS. If we are doing something broader I haven't come up with a sensible name. I see this important as many of our new editor and govenment treat trusts as businesses while we are coming at it from an education and schools direction.ClemRutter (talk) 08:32, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

About the United Learning, I can see it runs both independent schools and academies. Upon looking at its website, they have all their schools listed together on their our schools page and on their Road to United Learning page, it says "In 2012, it was agreed that the two linked charities should come together as a Group to form 'United Learning'." Even though the two charities are legally separate, I believe the infobox can still work. This is because they both have the same registered address, the type parameter can be used to mention multiple things such as Independent schools operator and multi-academy trust, UID page can still be linked and the registration number parameter can list both numbers. Regarding Northern Education Trust, there is already an affiliations parameter which can be used to mentioned Northern Alliance of Trusts which can then be section/page linked?

The schools parameter is a collective parameter, so total number of schools. Mentioning the number of schools is optional, however trusts and private schools usually mention the number of schools under its umbrella. The UK Government UID page also mentions the number of schools at the top next to Academies in brackets. Academies are schools but I can make the schools parameter interchangeable with academies if that helps although I'd say schools would suffice maybe?

Well as the articles would have the list of schools there would be no need to link to a navbox which would be at the bottom of the article (if there is one).

Not just academy trusts, the proposal is for this infobox to be used for anything that manages multiple schools (examples above) so that's why I was thinking of renaming it to Infobox school management which would be a generic name and acts like an extension of Infobox school? Infobox academy trust could be created as a redirect but I don't think we need to at the moment, the documentation will also be updated to say something like "it is for any establishment that manages multiple schools such as school districts, multi-academy trusts, private organisations..." What do you think? Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:12, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Continued: Multi-academy trusts

Multi-academy trusts have come back into focus and I posed this question on another page. (I can still stand up and dress myself but my memory has gone on holiday ) Question: Should a multi academy trust take a Infobox school infobox as Leigh Academies Trust does, or Infobox non-profit as Northern Education Trust does, or none as Academies Enterprise Trust does?

Logic tells me that all MATs should use Infobox non-profit, but there is an argument that academy articles are invariable about the school they manage, where Infobox school is always used. Historically there is cross over, a succesful single school academy trust has been asked to sponsor another school, and became a MAT in the process. The school article and infobox followed. I haven't done a thorough search but I haven't ever seen Infobox school district being used or wouldn't have thought of using it- as a district is a geographical location, and MATs were designed to sever the contact with a district. Each school will organise its admission in conjuction with a local authority (its school district) but must set up its own legal procedures, not alowed to opt-back into the LA. What we call the infobox is in the air- I suggested Infobox academy trust earlier but that just add the new problem of bringing in single academy schools which we don't want. Infobox multi-academy trust is more long winded but make more sense.

I am looking again at Northern Alliance of Trusts which lives om the Northern Education Trust page, and filling in the redlinks. So having forgotten the previous conversations put together WISE Academies (comments on the talk page please.). Here we get most of the basic data from GIAS-(get information about schools Government page and it strikes me that this is exactly what we need in a slimmed down infobox. Too many parameters and the new user will try to fill them relevant or not. We dont need a map, and there is no UK need for coords. We have the postal address of the registered office which is legally required for a company. The number of academies (frequently changing) ok- but number of childen on roll -no.

I looked at Pontefract and got distracted deleting primary source stuff while adding a referenced UID. Then I found Template:Infobox school district/testcases which brings me back to Pontefract. generally it looks good, but we must remember we are talking about a company. In my opinion we should cutout coords, any mention of a headteacher because there are many and employees of the board, any delegated power head teachers or exec headteacher have should be made in the individual schools. A MAT has trustees, a board with a chairman and a CEO. Provisions should be made for them. The other key member of staff who could get a parameter is the Chief Finance officer. We can kill mascots and colours. So back to the UID- nicely linked- but why have a bolded fixed link to the dfe? We are missing the Reports field showing | Ofsted </ref> and a Companies House Number(08445158) parameter.

(break- to do some eating sleeping) ClemRutter (talk) 20:47, 15 December 2019 (UTC)