After a public uproar over proposed school boundary changes, the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage school board is poised to vote Thursday on a plan that would instead try to entice families to switch schools.

The plan would offer incentives for students to go to elementary schools where the board wants to boost enrollment, starting with a pilot program this fall at Rahn Elementary in Eagan.

Scores of parents objected last month to attendance boundary changes that would move as many as 775 students, and the board's move to drop that proposal has pleased many. But others wonder whether incentives will succeed at two of the district's main goals: Moving kids from fuller to emptier buildings, and spreading out poor and minority students more evenly.

"I don't see how [the new plan] addresses what they're trying to do," said Sheryl Burkhardt, whose youngest child graduated from Burnsville High last year.

"That's the big question," said Board Member Gail Morrison. She said the district won't know if the plan will work until it's tried.

Administrators are still planning the incentives and will have a more detailed recommendation ready in about a month if the board supports the concept, said Superintendent Randy Clegg.

The incentives could include deeply discounted all-day kindergarten. Rahn also could offer an extended school year or day, and the district may give the school extra money to create a special focus to attract families.

Some parents who objected to boundary changes said the extra funding that would be needed for busing kids to new schools should go toward school programs. "If we can use the dollars that would have been spent on busing to help students attend all-day, every-day kindergarten, that would be wonderful," Morrison said.

Rahn was chosen as a pilot school because, with about 360 students, it's only 62 percent full. That's compared with an average of 90 percent for elementary schools in the district.

The incentives would be available to any family in the district, but officials are also likely to offer free busing to Rahn from a handful of neighborhoods along Burnsville Parkway now served by Sky Oaks Elementary, which has nearly 600 students.

Depending on how many families take advantage of the incentives, they could cost about as much as the boundary changes, which would necessitate extra busing, Clegg said.

"If this is a wildly successful program, we can tweak it, move it, apply it to other schools," said DeeDee Currier, school board chairwoman. "If it doesn't meet the goals of equity, then we need to look at boundaries."

School boards often consider socioeconomic and racial balance when they redraw boundaries, but diversity can be trumped by other considerations.

Before Chanhassen High School opened last fall, for example, the school community spent months debating how to draw attendance boundaries between the new building and Chaska High. Some people wanted to better balance the student bodies in terms of diversity, but the school board ultimately adopted city-based boundaries.

Hopkins school officials drew fire from parents as they considered several options for new elementary school boundaries three years ago, after they decided to close Katherine Curren Elementary. The school board ended up bypassing the plan that was expected to create the closest racial balance and picking the one that was least expensive and moved the fewest students.

"There are no easy answers," Clegg said. If school board members in Burnsville-Eagan-Savage decide to try incentives, he will urge them to monitor school enrollments closely and regroup if the plan doesn't work.

Burnsville resident Jocelyn Cox, who served on the task force, said she thinks the board's incentives are a good idea. "I think they didn't want to anger so many parents," she said, adding that redrawing boundaries was a tough topic even on the task force, which included about 70 residents and school employees.

Sarah Lemagie • 952-882-9016