Mayor Thomas Menino this week unveiled the make-up of the advisory committee that will work with his administration on revamping the city’s school assignment policy.

Menino has promised to set up a “radically different” school assignment policy from the costly and unpredictable one in place now, which divides the city into three assignment zones. School officials estimate that by 2014, busing will cost more than $100 million, up from the current outlay of roughly $80 million. Since 2004, the school department has spent nearly $350 million on transportation for general education and $290 million on transportation for students with disabilities.

The advisory committee includes current and former parents in the Boston Public School system, a former Boston city councillor, academics, and officials from the private and nonprofit sectors.

Dorchester residents on the committee include Ashmont Hill’s Robert Gittens, vice president of public affairs at Northeastern University; Brendan McDonough, a Savin Hill resident and head of Project D.E.E.P. (Dorchester Education Enrichment Program); and William Walczak, also of Savin Hill, and president of Carney Hospital and past head of the Codman Square Health Center.

Whether the panel can come up with a proposal that satisfies people who favor a return to neighborhood schools and people who see enrollment in quality schools as the priority is going to be “the biggest question,” Walczak said. “I hope it can be resolved. It’s a serious conundrum. The current system makes a lot of people unhappy.”

Funded through a $400,000 grant from the Barr Foundation and the public-private umbrella group, the Opportunity Agenda, the advisory committee will be chaired by Boston University’s Dean of Education Hardin Coleman and face a deadline of this coming December to deliver a proposal to the School Committee.

Other advisory committee members include John Nucci, vice president for government and community affairs at Suffolk University, and a former member of the School Committee and the City Council; Kelly Bates, an attorney and political consultant, as well as a BPS parent; School Committee member Mary Tamer; and Miren Uriarte, a sociologist and professor at UMass Boston’s College of Public and Community Service.

As part of the assignment policy revamping, the school department has scheduled four large community meetings across the city on Sat., March 10: Mildred Avenue K-8 School in Mattapan, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Jackson/Mann K-8 School in Allston from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; English High School in Jamaica Plain from 9 a.m. to noon; and East Boston High School from 9 a.m. to noon.