This executive summary of a research project explores the general question of how school districts change their domains through the management of major proposals ("issues"). The study, which focused on case studies of three suburban superintendents' management of five to seven major issues, used raw data consisting of interviews with superintendents and other participants, observations of board of education and administrative committee meetings, administrative documents, and newspaper articles. The data were collected and subjected to a six-level method of qualitative analysis in which increasing levels of analytical abstraction were applied, culminating in a general model of issue management and domain. Summaries of project output and papers either in draft or printed separately in part two of this report are included. The study has brought to light major themes including effective issue managers' avoidance of surprising their constituents, the importance of administrative mechanisms, rehearsal as a key aspect of issue framing, and incremental reframing of issues. Cited as methodological contributions to the project are computer assistance in qualitative research, content analysis strategies such as word count and analysis of the subject's causal assertions to derive a "mental map," and informant collaboration in interviews. The report concludes with a description of future projects and an appendix on data reduction procedures. (MJL)