Installing Locally#

You can install nycschools for use in your own Python projects just as you would any other library, however this package also requires a local data directory to store data files.

Install nycschools from pypi#

First, optionally, create a virtualenv then install the package with pip.

pip install nycschools

Load the data#

Download the data (this might take a little bit) files by running the interactive setup script:

python -m nycschools.dataloader -d

This script will ask you where to save the data. Make sure that you have read-write access to this directory.

Once the data is downloaded, you will be prompted to configure environment variables.

Configure environment variables#

You need to set the NYC_SCHOOLS_DATA_DIR environment variable so that python knows where to find the data. Where the instructions say /path/to/data replace it with the full path to the directory where you saved the data.

For example, if your username is mxc and you saved it into a folder calleddata in your home folder, the full path would be something like C:\Users\mxc\data\school-data on Windows, /Users/mxc/data/school-data on Mac, and /home/mxc/data/school-data on GNU/Linux.

The most reliable and recommended way to set the environment variable is to add it to the activation script of your virtual environment, and then use that venv for executing your python scripts or notebooks.

To find the activation script launch a python shell or Jupyter Notebook and execute this code:

import os

venv_path = os.environ.get('VIRTUAL_ENV')
if venv_path:
    unix_path = os.path.join(venv_path, 'bin', 'activate')
    win_path = os.path.join(venv_path)
    print(f"The activation script is located at: {activation_script_path}")
else:
    print("Not running inside a virtual environment")

source ~/.bashrc

On a Mac, you can set the NYC_SCHOOLS_DATA_DIR environment variable persistently by adding it to your .bash_profile file. Open a terminal window, then run:

echo 'export NYC_SCHOOLS_DATA_DIR=/path/to/data' >> ~/.bash_profile

Load the new settings by running:

source ~/.bash_profile

On Windows, to set the NYC_SCHOOLS_DATA_DIR environment variable persistently, you must use the System Properties window. Here are the steps:

  1. Right-click on ‘This PC’ or ‘My Computer’ and choose ‘Properties’.

  2. Click on ‘Advanced system settings’.

  3. Click on the ‘Environment Variables’ button.

  4. Under the ‘System variables’ section, click ‘New…’ to create a new system-wide environment variable, or create a user environment variable under the “User variables” section.

  5. Set the ‘Variable name’ to NYC_SCHOOLS_DATA_DIR and the ‘Variable value’ to the path to your data directory (e.g., C:\path\to\data).

  6. Click ‘OK’ to close each window.

This will set the NYC_SCHOOLS_DATA_DIR environment variable permanently for the system or user, depending on where you added it.

If you wish to set the NYC_SCHOOLS_DATA_DIR environment variable directly in a Jupyter Notebook (either because Jupyter is not reading the system variable, or you want to set or change it for one Notebook), you can do so using the env magic command. At the top of your Notebook, in a code cell, run and execute:

%env NYC_SCHOOLS_DATA_DIR=/path/to/data

Note: you will have to add this to each Notebook file.

On Linux, to set the NYC_SCHOOLS_DATA_DIR environment variable persistently, you can add the export command to your .bashrc or .profile file:

To add it to .bashrc (for example), open a terminal window, then run:

echo 'export NYC_SCHOOLS_DATA_DIR=/path/to/data' >> ~/.bashrc

Load the new settings by running:

source ~/.bashrc