Key:school

This key is generally used to classify an amenity=school by its type.

Values

Some of the most common values correspond to local age-based school classification systems:

• school=kindergarten – redundant to amenity=kindergarten
• school=elementary – overlaps with isced:level=1, 2, and/or 3 in some countries
• school=primary – overlaps with isced:level=1 in some countries
• school=secondary – overlaps with isced:level=2 and/or 3 in some countries
• school=vocational – vocational school or trade school (secondary or post-secondary school that teaches professional or technical job skills); overlaps with isced:level=4 in some countries. In parts of the United States, this commonly overlaps with isced:level=2 and/or isced:level=3 (for example, in the Baltimore City school system, most high schools are vocational schools of some form, with each having a different focus, such as healthcare professions healthcare professions, or design design). In these cases it may be helpful to use a key like training=* in order to tag a vocational focus separately.

Other common values indicate a specialization, which may overlap with one of the age-based classifications above:

• school=music – redundant to amenity=music_school; see also training=music
• school=sport – see also training=sport
• school=blind – schools for the blind and visually impaired people
• school=art – see also training=art

school=yes is another common value that in most cases should be removed in favor of amenity=school. However, in some cases, it may indicate some other relationship to a school that needs individual cleanup attention.

Subkeys and regional mappping schemes

Normally, tag values are spelled according to British English, but many local school classification systems employ words that do not translate one-for-one to British English. Several countries have adopted subkeys that accept values in the local language without the need for translation. Some common country-dependent subkeys as of May 2022:

• 🇧🇫 school:BF=*
• 🇧🇯 school:BJ=*
• 🇨🇩 school:CD=*
• 🇨🇲 school:CM=*
• 🇩🇪 school:DE=*
• 🇫🇷 school:FR=*
• 🇭🇹 school:HT=*
• 🇲🇬 school:MG=*
• 🇸🇳 school:SN=*

Other countries have a tagging scheme or tagging conventions that is compatible with school=*:

• 🇧🇪 Belgian conventions for school tagging

Other uses

School entrances

Some mappers have tagged the entrance to a school building or schoolgrounds as school=entrance (see Homonymous keys). However, entrance=* is the approved key for any kind of entrance, including school entrances. (The main entrance would be entrance=main.) As of May 2022, 1,729 entrances are tagged school=entrance and 290 are tagged school=entrance entrance=*. Presumably there are many more entrance=* nodes on amenity=school or building=school ways. The number of school=entrance has been stable (and slightly declining) since 2014.

School bus routes

On type=route and type=route_master relations, school=yes indicates that a route is intended for transporting students. For example, in conjunction with route=bus, it distinguishes a school bus route from a general-purpose bus route. As of May 2022, this combination is present on 79 route relations, most of them in Paris.

See also

• Education features
• Key:school: namespace
• grades=*
• school_bus=* for indicating whether a school bus (as opposed to other kinds of buses) can legally travel on a roadway or use a parking lot