Intended to help a rural Alberta (Canada) school district improve its policies on school attendance areas, this report delineates (1) current policies and procedures; (2) the institutional, social, and environmental context of these policies; (3) parents' concerns; (4) alternatives for improving the district's policies; and (5) recommendations. The central policy issues discussed are school bus service, whether or not attendance areas should remain "closed," and the costs and benefits of maintaining a decentralized school system. Following an executive summary and introduction, the initial chapter outlines these concerns and reports on an investigation of parents' views on these and related issues. The following chapter briefly summarizes a literature review and reports survey findings on policies in other jurisdictions of Alberta. The next chapter describes internal and external conditions bearing on policy. Next, alternative models of quality education, planning and decision-making, school attendance areas, and transportation are discussed. The final chapter recommends strategies from among these alternatives and suggests procedures for applying this report. Appendixes present the original proposal for this study; questionnaires sent to parents, with tabulated results; a schedule for parent interviews; a comprehensive review of the literature on attendance areas in North America; and the survey sent to other school districts, with a summary of its results. (MCG)