Given your statements above, would you agree that the City Commission should vote against putting the bond referendum on the ballot this year and wait until next year so that it can sort these issues out.

Isn’t it better to get it right than rush?

i’m particularly interested in post 2018 enrollment too. my sense is there’s likely to be some smoothing once our current bubble passes through and it may be better to build for the post 2018 average rather than overbuilding just to accommodate the bubble.

that said, i understand how difficult and fuzzy projections like these can be.

additional factors include projections re: yet developed residential building, e.g., what will replace the Callaway building, additional infill housing, new condos, plus the ongoing influx of Atlanta and Dekalb Country school system refugees. so, it’s even possible the 2018 projections may be on the low side.

Regarding enrollment, it is impossible to deny that growth is occurring and that something needs to be done to accommodate new students. I am also persuaded this will require new buildings. That said, I do wonder how far into the future the present trend will continue. The original presentation given to SLTs considered only a single growth projection. I would like to make sure that alternative future growth scenarios have been considered to ensure that we have a plan to cover our costs in the event the current trajectory changes. The plan approved by the board did address this to some extent by providing for construction to be sequenced to allow adjustments depending on future conditions, but I would have liked to have seen more explicit consideration of alternative scenarios. I understand the board has looked at alternative scenarios since the plan was rolled out this spring, so it is possible this type of analysis has already been done, but that I am not privy to it. I hope to learn more at the joint meeting between the board and the City Commission scheduled for August 5.

My second concern is with the process used to roll out the plan. I think it would have been better to engage the community earlier in the process—before the preliminary architectural plans were released—to explain the challenge and to get feedback on a wider range of more preliminary options. It is hard to strike the right balance, because you can’t have a public process without putting some ideas on the table for discussion. I also understand that the preliminary plans were developed primarily to generate a solid cost estimate, and that much more work will be done before final architectural plans are approved, but those drawings do create the impression that all the big decisions have already been made, even if that is not the case. In short, I think the process could be improved, and it is quite possible this would result in changes to the plan.

Lewis

based on your current understanding of our need to expand our infrastructure to accommodate student population growth, what’s your opinion about the School Board’s current proposal, and in what ways, if any, would you modify it?