Lawrence Public Schools (Shutterstock photo)

Because of last week’s turbulent stock market, the Lawrence school district’s sale of more than $44 million of bonds on Monday went significantly better than expected.

“The market kind of did a funny thing at the end of last week,” Kathy Johnson, director of finance for the district, told the Lawrence school board at its meeting Monday. “Actually it turned out today was just an ideal day for us to sell bonds. We had a really good end result.”

The district sold $20.5 million worth of new bonds and refinanced $23.5 million of bonds from 2006. Both sets of bonds had a Moody’s rating of AA2, meaning they are “high quality and subject to very low credit risk.”

Last week saw significant drops in international and U.S. stock markets, and that turmoil made bond sales a more attractive buy for investors and resulted in considerably lower interest rates, financial advisers told the board.

It had been estimated that the district would save about $2 million by refinancing the old bonds, but the final savings after the sale ended up being more than $3.6 million. Board members and district officials were pleased at the result of the sale.

“This is about as good of news as anybody could have anticipated,” said Lawrence schools Superintendent Rick Doll.

The board unanimously passed a motion finalizing the sale with George K. Baum & Co. with an interest rate of 2.327 percent and a savings of 13.071 percent on the refinanced bonds. Also included as part of the sale was a second motion providing for the levy of taxes to pay the principal and interest of the bonds.

The $20.5 million sale of new bonds is the final portion of the $92.5 million bond issue to update facilities and technology districtwide, with emphasis on the district’s 14 elementary schools.

Because of the better-than-expected sale, the amount of taxes levied will also be less than anticipated. That news was also welcome as the district looks ahead to additional facility improvements at its middle and high schools.

“This is great news as we head into the planning process for the secondary schools,” said board President Vanessa Sanburn.

Last month, the board approved a deal with Gould Evans Architects to develop a facilities master plan for the district’s six secondary schools, with an emphasis on Lawrence High School.

In other business, the board:

• Discussed the characteristics that will be used in the district’s search for a superintendent to replace Rick Doll, who will resign at the end of the school year. The characteristics will be used to evaluate the applicants to the position. Board members simplified a brainstorm of descriptions completed last week by choosing qualities — such as leadership, communication and transparency — and plan to have the characteristics finalized by Wednesday.

• Reviewed a report on student wellness. The report outlined efforts to increase movement in the classroom, grow participation in the school garden program and create lesson plans that include outdoor learning.

The school board’s next meeting will be Jan. 25 at the district offices, 110 McDonald Drive.