meeting the parties of the district. in your packet, you will see a map and this is only a partial matt which looks at the language. in your packet, it will show what the proposal is for the middle school feeders. right now, we want people to come and let us know about that and give us input to and there are many opportunities to do that. what the board will be considering is what she -- what approach to use once the feeders are identified. there are several options under consideration. the first is really not to use a pattern but to continue with our choice process and have a process that just uses younger siblings, test scores, and others, which is the interim

process we are using for the coming year. the second option is to go with the original policy proposal. you would have a guaranteed -- into the middle school. you can choose to opt out or engage in the choice process for other schools. this is how it would work in that process. the third option which is the option the district staff is recommending is that we use a phase-in approach. that means that there would be no initial assignments to the middle school. the younger sibling would get the first tiebreaker, the test score area. then the middle school feeders would be used as a tiebreaker.

we are also going through redesigning transportation. we are going through a phased in and phased out approach to line transportation with the current priorities. our vision is that by 2013, we will be in a different place in terms of transportation. today, we have an infrastructure that was designed in the 80's and it has never really been redesigned.

it is difficult for us to do an assessment. we would like to design routes to support parties and we are going to reduce costs. we will be serving 33 elementary schools. we are trying to have an >> process so we know which students are using the bus service. all will attend affiant those which are lined in 2013. we want to minimize the impact on the students for the coming

fall, 2011 we wanted to minimize the impact on the families in terms of transportation. we did not want to go and change any school times or morning start times, we wanted to avoid that. this is what we are exploring, which schools will lose service by 2013 that they currently have. we have many that only have a handful of students that are writing. we want to make sure that students in the low test score areas, they are served and have access to a good number of schools. we want to make sure that there are students who are accessing our bus service to get to after-

school programs. and there are some areas that have a few riders. we had to look at services to those. for the fall of 2011, we are going to be removing services to 11 elementary schools and reducing services to four elementary schools and we want to try to look at the stops. we want to design them so they are no closer than a half mile apart so we can be more efficient. we are not planning on reducing any more than the 11 schools and 14 elementary schools that will be reducing so pretty much everything will be status quo

in 2011. these are the schools that will have a legal services the next school year. we are in the process now of getting this information out to to all of these families and to the school committee. we are providing an opportunity at the school site summit to hear more about transportation and what we can do to support the family. these are the schools that are looking at reducing some of their service and they will continue to get service. we will be reducing. >> do you have questions now? >> the supervisor is on the roster before me but i have a question related to transportation which i think is appropriate. i'm sorry to jump roster. there is a hearing on monday,

february 14th, at 4:00 related to the life fund pass to low income students in the school district. this is really related to the changes in the best plan, the transportation plan, because less buses will be available. there is a hearing in this room at 4:00 on monday about this issue every want to make sure that we had this at a time the students of the district would be able to come to the hearing. i'm sorry to interrupt. we were talking about transportation, it would be good to bring out. >> thank you. >> actually, if you want to go through and finish your presentation, my questions were about feeder patterns and then back to transportations. >> i am almost done.

if we are talking about 2013, these are the schools that we have identified that will retain services but they probably will be redesigned in some way. these are the areas from which they will be getting service. right now, families who live in these areas will know from that area that they will have access over the next two years to these schools. this is all a draft proposal as well. part of our gold is to help build and moment of some of our under enrolled schools. some of the schools that are under enrolled, it says to be determined in terms of transportation. we want to make sure we are working with those schools to see where we are going to help them recruit students to build

their enrollment. that is going to be a different conversation with these schools. here is another snapshot as to the schools and where they will be drawing from. this is primarily from the low test score areas. we want to make sure that those schools have opportunities to access language programs and different unique kinds of opportunities that would be provided. we have to reduce the transportation project and this requires reducing the bus fleet

from 44 buses to 25 buses. we need to redesign services to realign with the current courteous. we are unable to maintain services given the budget constraints. in february, we are sharing information and a gathering feedback. there is going to be more information coming out of the summit that will be held saturday. we are trying to work with the sites that will be affected by this by sending letters to parents, meeting with them, helping them identify alternative ways to access transportation. we have a web survey and

actually we have a website that they can -- we have an e-mail account where they can get information for families and give feedback from them. in march and april, the board will be about waiting the feedback and determine what the final process will be in terms of transportation. there is a snapshot of our staff at the educational center. as much as we can, we want to serve families. we are going out to the community, to the neighborhoods to get the word out. thank you. >> thank-you. >> ok, we will open up for questions. >> just a couple of questions.

one on the topic of transportation. taking a look your slide which shows they are losing transportation. there are those that have high numbers of writer ship. -- ridership. i am under -- i am trying to understand what is the reason these were chosen. are they coming from areas that they did not necessarily need the transportation poops -- the transportation? >> there were at several that we looked at. one there are many families affected by that.

we mapped out where they lived and where they were going so at the school in particular, they were accessing those that are in close proximity to the school. so, we thought there is an opportunity there to be able to develop alternative ways for those students to access programs. they have to cross a couple of streets. a couple of the spots are only about three or four blocks away from the school. >> would they be partnering with those after-school providers to make sure there is a safe transition? >> yes, we plan to work with some of these areas. somewhere in close proximity to the school.

we did look at the writer should and some of the schools that we chose, some had three what the going to an after-school program. we know that it is difficult but we want to work with those families and those principles. >> three of them were actually going to profit after school? >> correct. >> i gave you have a high level. some of them -- i'm looking at

the wrong slide. some of the stops, there was some were only three students were getting on but they were not going to an after-school program. >> kids were coming from the area. they were close enough to approximate. >> ok. >> with regard to transportation, one of the concerns we have heard from the use commission is just that it is and difficult to get this done by the transportation school district. and some time, we might want to bring that up and how it is that the school district is planning to distribute those

passes because that seems to be an issue with transportation. on another topic which is on the middle school pattern, i wanted to clarify that i heard correctly that you had talked about three different options that the school board would be considering. one is really to have a feeder pattern and option a, b, c. it sounds like you said that the school districts choice was option c. you are saying that that is a phased approach but i'm not sure that is really a phase in because the conversation about middle school was talked about, i think this was two years ago, it has been delayed one more year ending saturday been delayed.

you would have younger siblings and test core areas. >> it can be changed. we want to have opportunities for our attendance areas and the school committees to kick in with this new process. if we were to use this process for several years, we would probably see a change over time of some of the students attending schools. we're hoping if their corn to be accessing their favorite schools, that that would become a natural cedar. at some point with this phase in, we want to give time for

this process to come into play and then there would be an opportunity to use the middle school feeders as stronger links. at this time, it will be a tie breaker. >> what is the timeline -- what is the time line for this? this is important information to relate to parents. option b was what we should be talking about when it was being considered. i don't think that it follows through. it would be important for parents to be notified. >> i think that it can be negotiated. i know that there are conversations about which should

take priority over others. it would also give an opportunity for the district to work on the planning of our middle school to make sure that the quality programs are in place. there is a whole other level of work happening in our middle schools and we want to make sure that all the programs are in place, and the language programs, to make sure that all of our students needs are met. it discourages the process and involuntary parent participation in this virtual proposal that we have. this gives the district a little bit more time to do that planning. >> was there a time when the school district would be making the decision? >> i'm hoping that by may the district will have a determination about which approach they want to take and

after that, we will be able to get more information out to the public. >> what could be useful for us is to let us know in advance when those public comment opportunities would be before the decision is made. that would be helpful for us to get the word out to the community organizations. >> there are some meetings that are being coined now and there is also an e-mail that we would like families to use that is good opportunity for families to give us feedback as well. >> i know that the draft middle school theater pattern is currently in draft form. i'm not sure if it is prop it to talk about but -- i not sure if it is appropriate to talk about. there is a specialty language

components and i don't see them assigned to any particular school. >> yes. >> ok. the graph shows a color pattern that indicates where different schools should be. i am sure there was probably some conversations that went into the proposals. perhaps in an intervening time, you could set up a time with our office and we are interested in looking at the different patterns. >> absolutely, we can call your office and talk about this. >> thank you. i would like to add to what was said. you have been working on this for a long time. we have been working on this much longer than you have and we

have put a lot of hours and work in this. we are in appreciation of what you have been doing. we have had many plants. all of these are televised. we encourage the public to watch these on television if they cannot attend the meetings. they are available on our website. so, for the public that might be listening, we have many meetings planned and we do encourage you to come out and speak and give us your input. we also have them and different of languages. not only in english. part of addressing our transportation, some of the conversation that has happened is that we are trying to align

our after-school learning opportunities at school sites. we were giving free transportation to profit providers bonds to private and providers of after-school programs. we can no longer do that. our strategy is also to have after-school programs on site. that is our goal. also, about our middle school, we did option 3 which staff recommended. we are trying to make this decision aligned with the strengthening of our curriculum and programming and when we look at the middle school programs, we must take into consideration that we are creating language also and different programming

in other schools. i think this approach, while we look at the decision, we felt we did not want to rush into this because many things were interconnected to the decision. i look forward to to have been a representative come back to this meeting once it is decided and hopefully. then we will have information about 2012-2013. >> i am speaking on behalf of the city. i wanted the supervisors and the commissioners to know that in regards to the lifeline, we have been having multiple conversations in regards to having the city support and distribution to see if there is

some way that they can help us distribute those accordingly. the school district has had some challenges around having the ability to collect others on the site. there is distribution and then thinking about how we identify all the students at each of the sites. one way that we can engage in the organization to ensure that these are getting directly to the students. i want to make you aware of that. secondly, 311 has been a great partner for the school district. the staff has been working to train the staff to make sure that when families, about enrollment questions that 311 can answer the general

questions. they have been working closely to make sure that information gets out to to the city and services. >> thank you. i just would like to think the announcement and some of the hard work that she does with the city and school district. i am looking forward to getting more information on how that is working out. with regards to the school assignment issue and is just a feeder issue, i appreciate the work that the school board members make. in particular, i appreciate the fact that this is very much in the purview of the school board. i appreciate that you work on

this far more in depth than we do. by virtue of us have in this community here, this stresses the necessity to work together and make sure the communication is present because i cannot tell you how many hundreds of parents call our office every day because they think that we are you. we need to be in communication about what is that the school district is representing because when we had this conversation two years ago about what this would look a dike, everyone thought there would be things to work out. -- when we had this conversation two years ago about what this would look like. this would be a stronger connection and allow for more success at the middle school level. this is what we have been sharing with parents when they're concerned about a delay in implementation. we said, don't worry, the school district is working on it. i just want to relate that if it is going to be a diversion from

what is that the school district talked about, it is important but we know also that the committee knows that they can respond to it as well. thank you. >> i just want to piggyback on what was said and i appreciate your comments, supervisor chu. i think the reason why this has taken on her and taken a different shape than maybe we are originally talked about is that a really productive conversation about what is middle school quality. -- then maybe we originally talked about is that it sparked a rally productive conversation. what are the values in our program? part of when we began to implement the feeder patterns, we realized that we were going to jeopardize program quality in some ways and that we really

needed to engage our community more about what they wanted for their children. so, i actually think that this is frustrating for community members to have the delay and this will lead to a much more productive transformation of our middle school program. i think that the effort that will be going on over the next few months, all of the city, these conversations which we will be asking people these questions about which option do they like, which programs to they want, what does the quality mean to you? this will give us a lot more information about how this serves the community. statement. -- stay tuned. this will lead to a better outcome.