Creating Active Directory Structure for a School District

Hello,

I am starting a new job for a school district and need to create a Microsoft Active Directory Structure. Here is some information

* 7 schools with 1 admin building which acts as the hub.
* Approxiamtely 4500 students with 500 at 6 schools and 1500 at 1 school.
* All building are connected via fiber on the same LAN. All private ips.
* Teachers and Staff will have login for the first year. 800 employees.
* Students will all have logins by year two.
* Currently the Exchange Server is being hosted offsite on its own PDC. Look to bring it back  
   inhouse.
* Currently they have windows 2003 servers at each school doing their own DNS, DHCP and generic logins.

What is the best way to centralize administration and create an easy to manage Microsoft Active Directory Architecture? I have read mixed reviews on creating a Forrest with Child domains.

Thanks for your help in reference to this matter?

--Chris B.