You could possibly also try to partner with organizations that are focused on different special interest areas to get them to help coordinate getting the data.
Yes, I think for special needs students or subsets of that, this would be a good way to add supplemental data. For example, a parent wants to do a search of public schools with resources for autistic children near Boston. That's a good use case and there probably is an organization with that data.
Honestly, you might even be able to get some grant money or financial support if you commit to helping them include whatever data they have in a user-friendly manner.
It might not be the full-scope of what you are trying to do, but it might be a way to help bootstrap part of your development.
