BATON ROUGE - Big changes are coming for East Baton Rouge schools and hundreds of students. On Tuesday, school board members got a first look at proposals to redraw attendance zones all over the parish.

It's been more than a decade any significant changes have been made to attendance lines, but with the impact of the 2016 flood and a new tax plan, it's time for the zones to be adjusted.

"We may have kids living just south of Choctaw going all the way to Tara when we spent millions of dollars on Istrouma, which is a stones throw away," board member Evelyn Ware-Jackson said. "It's a matter of updating lines that haven't been touched in decades."

"One of our goals is to make sure all of our students get into a new or renovated school with a shorter bus ride," EBR Superintendent Warren Drake said.

The superintendent also says the proposed zones were designed with several principles that put children first.

"Right now, it's hard for a parent to say where their child will go to school elementary, middle, and high school," Drake added. "But after this they will know."

After the changes are made, the school board is expected to adopt and vote on a final version of the new attendance plan in April.