Groundbreaking

on the first of four new schools planned as part of a $65 million bond

program is expected by summer, now that a 94.2-acre site has been purchased

for three schools and the bonds have been sold.

Funds from

the bond sale last Wednesday are expected to be wired into the Fayette

County Board of Education account Feb. 7.

The board last

week bought 94.2 acres on Lester Road, off Ga. Highway 54 between Fayetteville

and Peachtree City, for three of the four new schools, at $9,500 per acre

from the estate of Lorex A. Cleveland. Through an agreement with the estate,

the elementary school on the site will be named the Cleveland Elementary

School.

There is sufficient

room for a high school, middle school and elementary school, said Melinda

Berry-Dreisbach, public information specialist. Plans are to build the

Cleveland Elementary School first.

The elementary

school is a prototype, to be built according the plans with which the

three previous elementary schools have been built.

"We have

tweaked these plans after each previous elementary school was built,"

said Mike Satterfield, director of facilities services. "Consequently,

the amount of change orders should be at a bare minimum."

Construction

of the first school is expected to cost $6.9 million and will be paid

out of the sale of $65 million in bonds recently approved for school expansion.

The bonds were

sold Wednesday, Jan. 24 by Todd Barnes, of A. G. Edwards & Son, who

spoke to the board members. He pointed out that the school board rating

according to Moody was AA3 and Standard & Poor's rating was AA-. In

both instances the credit rating was higher than the last time the board

of education was rated on the bond market.

The overall

debt cost is projected to be 4.14 percent over a 10-year period.

In other business,

Dr. John D. DeCotis, superintendant of schools, proposed that a change

in local and long distance telephone services be made.

Obtaining bids

from the three suppliers on local services and four suppliers for the

long distance services, it was decided that the lowest provider for local

service was BellSouth, and a savings over a 60-month period would amount

to $28,746 a year.

Quest was the

lowest bidder for the long distance services and a 36-month contract would

save about $2,000 per year, he said.