ms. o'keefe gave tonight, and you have not heard any public conversation about transportation. we have not either. i'd just want to commend you for taking the extra time to think about what this part of a policy will look like and to think about what a good public policy would look like to let people know this is on the table and that it is a serious issue that people have to engage in. the fact that you haven't heard from the community does not mean it is not important. commissioner: if we were to start recommending that, then we would start hearing from the public. commissioner -- put it out there as something you want to hear from. don't do it again. do it as a set of ideas. commissioner: we have a little time now, so, commissioner mendoza. commissioner mendoza: the idea has come up about charging it, and that is something that we could do. >> we could do it. commissioner: the question is, will we realize enough money to make it worthwhile? commissioner fewer: i guess that is where i am interested, because we have some issues. we have dropped them along the routes. i am just

ms. o'keefe alluded to, it has been a little less developed, frankly, and that is one of the reasons whywe are proposing a slight adjustment in the timeline, so the goal of this presentation is to briefly go over the timeline with the new policy. there are some very significant questions about how the policy might be implemented and to get the feedback from the board and the feedback the commissioners of about the thinking that we have undertaken so far. so just to cut to the chase in terms of the policy timeline, the original plan was to have this discussion take place from the 2004 act of the transportation policy at a fairly broad level of the second meeting, two weeks from tomorrow, and what we are proposing is that second reading take place in november, on november 9, and we would have two more discussions in this ad hoc committee that would go into more detail about regulations that would take place at the october 13 committee meeting, and then as ms. o'keefe said earlier, we would still be in the position to publish a goal for the school year in january of two dozen 11, which is s

ms. o'keefe, could you tell us how many people currently get one of their choices in the middle school process? the interim process we are proposing is likely to have the same kinds of results we have today. >> historically, for the last eight years, 90% of middle school students get one of their choices. >> i am the executive director of parents for public schools. i talked to almost 1000 parents. most were parents the district has the hardest time reaching. we heard the same things then as we heard this last month. parents are clamoring for quality schools. second, parents want to make informed choices, whether it is choosing their school or lending their voice to a conversation about student assignments. since the message is the same to us, we want to repeat the message we gave to you in the spring. we want the district to start to give the discussion about quality schools the same visibility, urgency, and consistent attention as we have been giving student assignment. we call on the board and district to engage the community around a plan for creating quality schools. we are still too -- w

ms. o'keefe will share some details regarding that recommendation. >> the temporary message for middle school placement that we are recommending is that students would not start with an initial assignment, because peter patterns would have to be created for that to -- feeder patterns would have to be created for that. we would use tie-breakers, and i will elaborate that in a second, to assign students to their highest available choice. if they do not get one of their choices, they would be offered placement at the closest middle school that has openings once the choice process has completed. that is what we are recommending. this is an illustration to show what policy tie-breakers are. there would be an initial assignment, then a young girl siblings, then test areas, then attendance areas, at dense population areas, and others. if we do not have the theater patterns and do not have the attendance area -- we do not have the feeder patterns or attendance area, we would not have those as tiebreakers yet. once those are done, we would implement the policy as outlined -- use an allocation method a

ms. o'keefe will share some details regarding that recommendation. >> the temporary message for middle school placement that we are recommending is that students would not start with an initial assignment, because peter patterns would have to be created for that to -- feeder patterns would have to be created for that. we would use tie-