EPA developed the Smart School Siting Tool under its Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program to help school agencies and other local government agencies work together to better align school siting and other community development decisions. The tool includes:

• A User Guide that provides background on the links between school siting and community impacts, presents an overview of the tool, and describes how to use the Excel-based workbooks.
• The Assessment & Planning Workbook, which helps a community understand how well its school siting process is coordinated with land use and other community planning processes.
• The Site Comparison Workbook, which helps a community evaluate and compare candidate sites for a proposed school, which could be a new or renovated school.