Seattle Public Schools has revised the proposed attendance boundaries, which are a key component of the new student assignment plan.   The Seattle Times is reporting that the district made changes in the boundaries for 45 of its 58 elementary schools.

The changes reflect many of the more than 1,000 suggestions made by parents and other community members, said Tracy Libros, director of enrollment planning.

The School Board is scheduled to vote on the boundaries Nov. 18th.

The board earlier approved the outlines of the new school-assignment plan, which will return Seattle to a neighborhood-based system for the first time in three decades. The district has been moving in that direction for many years, but this new plan would take the final step by assigning students to a nearby school based on their address.

The board’s goal is to create a plan that will provide families with certainty about where their children will attend school, and that will be simpler to understand. The plan preserves some of the choice that Seattle parents have had, but the district won’t provide as much yellow bus transportation to faraway schools as it has in the past.

[ ... ]

The staff is still recommending reopening five closed schools over the next few years — even McDonald Elementary, south of Green Lake. Some school board members had questioned the need for that school, but Libros said Tuesday that without McDonald, the other schools in that area would not have enough space.

[The Seattle Times]

The attendance boundary for Roosevelt High School (1410 NE 66th St) now stretches west of Green Lake to Greenwood/Phinney Ave and north past the original line at N. 80th St to N. 85th St [pdf].

Another change can be seen in the boundary between Green Lake Elementary (2400 N 65th St) and McDonald School (114 NE 54th St) [pdf].  The boundary has moved south from N 60th St to N 57th St.  This change also affects Middle School assignments for families that live in the three blocks between the first proposed boundary and the current boudary: previously assigned to Hamilton International School (4400 Interlake Ave N), they are now assigned to Eckstein Middle School (3003 NE 75th St).

Updates 11/4:

The southern boundary of the proposed MacDonald School attendance map has also shifted, from N 47th St to N 46th St .

The changes to Bagley Elementary School can be seen on this awesome map, created by Dylan Wilbanks.

Other changes, noted by the Seattle Public Schools Community Blog:

[A] northern part of Bagley has gone into Viewlands. It gains a NE portion of West Woodland. And that little bit that was to go to Hamilton is now in going to Whitman because of that change. [ ... ] JSIS now pops up a bit in ts NW border into McDonald. Green Lake no longer has any of North Green Lake (which went over to Bagley).

…. and from the comments on that post:

SeattleMom:  It seems odd to make the area close to the new McDonald school even smaller while it still stretches far east into the area north of the U-Village which includes the UW student housing. This also increases the Eckstein area and reduces the Hamilton area by those blocks. Is that what people between N 57th and 60th St wanted? I myself am still in the McDonald area and not affected.

SeattleMom:  One more thing regarding McDonald School: I have counted at least four private schools in that area (UCDS, University Co-op, Meridian School, and St. Benedict). While these, of course, are drawing kids from the whole city (and beyond), they are also particular attractive to folks close by. I wonder whether the school district takes that into account when they count the number of people/kids in the McDonald area. One more reason to try to make McDonald a great (competitive) school. But as is, the new boundaries of McDonald look horrible, really squished in there. The old proposed boundaries where somewhat better, I think.

WallingfordMom:  I agree with SeattleMom. The McDonald area is constructed oddly, and I am curious why they shrunk the N/S boundaries like they did. (Perhaps they are hoping the community is not organized enough to complain?) That area has a ton of families, many of them attending private school. I can see a lot of families opting out — especially if it starts out as a K/1 and their older child cannot attend the school.

[Seattle Public Schools Community Blog]

There is a School Board meeting at 6 p.m. tonight (Wednesday, November 4th) at the John Stanford Center Auditorium (2445 3rd Ave S).  The agenda can be found here [PDF].  Sign up to testify at the meeting by calling Pamela Oakes, Senior Administrative Assistant, School Board Office, at (206) 252-0040.

There will also be a Community Feedback Meeting tomorrow (Thursday, November 5th) evening, 6:30-8:30 p.m., at Roosevelt High School (1410 NE 66th St), as well as several other community meetings over the next two weeks.

The School Board will vote on the final boundary map on November 18th.  If approved, the changes will effect students entering kindergarten, 6th grade and 9th grade in the 2010-2011 school year.

See any other changes that we missed?  Have some thoughts about the proposed new boundaries?  Let us know in the comments.