George and Peter,

The following are my reflections on this morning's meeting and Peter's notes on the meeting. I appreciated the opportunity to lean more about the construction of the facility plan.

I continue to believe my brief foray into "1.5 mill" territory should be history -- and just want to confirm this.

With regard to the term of the sinking fund, I prefer 5 years. I believe the construction management team can make this work reasonably well. And in any case, we are in a situation where political and administrative acceptability warrants a high weight in order to pass the package. The first section of the notes reflects a period in the meeting where 4 or 5 years was very much "in play." The fourth bullet in the second section is where we landed, that is on 5.

I continue to prefer that the capacity analysis not be an argument we use for one bond, unless we become desperate. The capacity discussion could be damaging to support in the community.

The "program and achievement" item is attractive to the degree it focuses on the new potential programs enabled by the new facilities and the CNF shift. The "operating cost" item makes me very nervous because I would like to see this handled as a simple, factual statement of the sort circulated in recent days. That is, I would not want us to lead the BOE into a discussion of some length on operating costs. The discussion of new programs needs to have more substance than an "I would like to do this and trust me, I will" to be substantially effective.

The order for the BOE meeting on March 3 might be as follows; items 2-4 each include a specific Superintendent recommendation:

1. Update on programmatic elements/thinking-- which is positive and upbeat about the exciting opportunities we have before us; including this item assumes we have things to say; anticipate some trustees wanting assurance we are committed to helping ALL students achieve at a level closer to their potential and that this package will help us do that.

2. Update on the size of the package, with brief explanation of the changes from the number previously seen by trustees (if applicable); anticipate one or more trustees exploring ways to reduce the size. This might be where the significant discussion of the satellite pre-school centers occurs.

3. Partitioning of the package into its bond and sinking fund components, including discussion of the term of the bond and sinking fund. Keep this focused on the next five years for the most part. I am nervous about the "long term capital needs" item in the notes. Have a clear statement of the "principle of partition" used for allocating projects to the sinking fund or bond; try to keep the discussion on this principle rather than let it go to individual projects. Anticipate trustees focusing on the timing of projects (i.e., who has to wait and why) more than on the partitioning; may be some discussion of the mill rate for the sinking fund.

4. Ballot language to implement the above: Do not initiate a discussion of how one could split the bond into two or more pieces but be prepared to respond objectively to such a suggestion while remaining firm that the recommendation is for one bond.

I am not sure I have added anything to what Peter wrote. I send this recognizing I may have only helped solidify a framework in my mind rather than produced anything helpful to you.

Glenn

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