Modest School Attendance Boundary Changes Approved

The Rochester School Board voted Tuesday night to approve a modest reworking of the school district’s attendance boundaries.The changes are expected to impact a couple hundred students starting in the fall of 2015, with most attending elementary schools in southeast Rochester

The board also decided to implement a modest change to the lottery system used to select students from the waiting lists for the district’s choice school programs. It’s hoped that shifting the application process from the individual schools to the district’s administrative office, along with some additional marketing, will boost the numbers of minority and low income students signing up for the choice programs.

The vote Tuesday night ended a process that saw an ambitious proposal to significantly expand the choice programs quickly scaled back, and then dropped as supporters of the affected neighborhood schools voiced overwhelming opposition to the plan.