The Board of Governors of the International School of Geneva decided without consultation to move all students in classes 10 through 13 from La Grande Boissiere and La Chataigneraie to a new campus to be constructed in Grand Saccconex, near the airport.

I was a little surprised not to read an instant flurry of opinions on the Extraordinary consultative general assembly (ECGA) held on Tuesday. Anyway for the benefit of those of you whom could not make it and are interested in my opinion here goes:

By 19:30 there was standing room only in the UN hall that probably seated 600+ and nearly all stayed until midnight. By 01:00 the crowd was down to 30% but the commitment and energy of group was clear.

I was dismayed by the performance of the Governing Board, who clearly were unprepared (or unwilling) to deal with even the simplest of questions. Non-verbal and verbal behaviors were those of a dozen plus escaped convicts facing questioning after having been re-captured, which would have been amusing in any other context. These are the people who have the future well being of our school in their hands and I left the meeting feeling that something drastic has to be done.

95-98% of those present in the hall were clearly against the idea of a ten to thirteen option for the Saconay Campus and throughout the entire evening this was made clear to the Board.

One of the few things that was communicated to us was that the 10 to 13 brief has been sent out to the architects bidding for the design of the new campus and that the jury will select an architect based on the results of this competition. When the Board was asked when they were going to change the brief to include at least the other two options they said that this could (would) not be done, but changes could be made in February/March after an architect has been selected. My simple brain asks how and why are they going to select an architect based on a 10-13 proposal when at the ECGA it was clear that this option should but dropped or at least considered as the least favorable in the minds of the Parents, Students and Teachers. If my memory serves me well the Board is supposed to be representing the interests of the aforementioned groups :-)

The winner of a 10-13 option may not be the best firm to build a 1-13 campus so why are they going ahead with it? On top of it all, changing the brief after selection will only increase architect fees as they will go back to the drawing board on Ecolint time ( Ron Forrest, Chairman) chose not to answer this among many other questions!!

We were told that important partners of the school were the Companies, NGO's (75% of income) and the Cantonal authorities none of whom had been invited to the assembly. Having had lunch the following day with the President of the GEM (Groupement des Entreprises Multinationals) who represents a workforce of 45'000 employees in Suisse Romande and 65% of the student body through their employees the parents, it is clear that some of our 'partners' are not overly impressed with the way the School is handling the expansion. I personally have promised my friend to keep the GEM informed either officially or unofficially whatever the case may be.

I will not go on for too long in this first of several mails. Please feel free to reply directly (matt@them-sa.com) or through the online community if you would like to offer me some advice.

After what I've seen and heard two nights ago, I am committed to not allowing the Board to undermine the magic of Ecolint.

Matt COOPER ('81)