• ---------- Forwarded message ---------
    From: Ahmed Ismail <ismaila@gpschools.org>
    Date: Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 12:23 PM
    Subject: GPPSS - Sara Scott Email Requesting That I be Censured Because I Provided a Truthful Answer to a Resident's Question

    Cc: School Board (GPPSS) <schoolboard@gpschools.org>, <dwotruba@masb.org>



    Hello, ,

     

    This email is in response to your email addressed to President Summerfield at his home email address and also copied to the school board as a whole.  Inasmuch as by her actions Mrs. Gafa has made your email an item that will be posted on our website, this email (which I would normally just have addressed to you) now must be copied to everyone so that it is posted so that your and Mrs. Gafa's emails can be put into perspective.

     

    Let me preface this email by saying that these are my personal opinions and may not necessarily be shared by the other members of the school board or its administration.

     

    I was surprised and disappointed that you didn't take the time to contact me directly with your concerns.  I have always gone out of my way to be accessible.  You went to the trouble of finding President Summerfield's personal email address to send your email to, went to the trouble of tracking down the name of the Executive Director of the Michigan Association of School Boards (Mr. Don Wotruba) to copy your email to, yet didn't take the time to visit our school system website's board member bio page on which I am the only member of the board who offers their email address, phone number and work address for those who want to talk in person.  As a result of my making myself so accessible on our school system website and my long-time involvement with our business community, I would venture to guess that I receive more communication from residents with questions than most, which I appreciate.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any concerns in the future.

     

    Out of respect for our community, I am attaching the full email with its attachments of which you only attached a small portion in your email.  Reading what you have attached to your email without the other 16 pages of the email very much takes my email out of context, which I feel is a disservice to our entire community.

     

    The email in question was sent to a long time Grosse Pointe Woods resident in response to a phone message left with my wife asking why I did not vote in the affirmative for the bond language that is being presented to the voters on November 6.  In an effort to allow this resident to make up her own mind (and knowing that her husband is an attorney who is a stickler for detail), I went to the trouble of attaching exhibits downloaded from the school system and MSBO websites so that she and her husband didn't have to take my word about anything. Please feel free to share this email and its attachments (attached) as you see fit.

     

    I find it inspiring that you are reading our school system policy manual and the annexed MASB Governance Standards.  Copies of both documents are also attached so that everyone who reads this email has convenient access to these documents. 

     

    I would like to address the documents you referenced in your email as the reasons you feel it is so important that I be censured individually, as together they conflict with each other in my opinion.

     

    1. POLICY 143.1 PUBLIC EXPRESSION OF BOARD MEMBERS

    If you read the policy (copy attached), it requires the following relative to personal comments of Board members:  "...Therefore, Board members should make it clear that their views do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board or of their colleagues on the Board, when writing, speaking or otherwise communicating (such as electronically) on school matters to the media, in social media, with legislators, and other officials..." If you take the time to reread the email in question, the beginning of my email states, "..Let me preface these comments by saying that any opinions expressed below are mine personally and not those of the Board of Education and/or its members.."  Please advise how you feel that my statement at the beginning of the email in question does not meet the requirements of Board Policy 143.1 regarding Board members sharing their personal views.

     

    I would encourage you to read the individual social media posts made by Board members.  Then, apply the Board Policy that states that only Board President can make comments on behalf of the board and Policy 143.1 to each of the posts.  Are the Board members making the posts the Board President?  If they aren't, then did they offer the Policy-mandated disclaimer to preface each of their comments?  While some may have an obscure disclaimer posted on their main page, no reader is looking for that (or can be reasonably be expected to).  Based on the fact that these Board members are not offering the required disclaimer as a preference to their individual posts, should they be censured?

     

    Take the time to examine the emails that my fellow Board members have made available to the public by way of the school system website.  Do they have the disclaimer required by Policy 143.1 on them?  Are you requesting that they be censured for not following Policy 143.1 as well?

     

    1. MASB GOVERNANCE STANDARDS

    Your email indicates you feel I have violated these standards, which I voted to support at our local board level.  I would encourage you to carefully read the entire document (a copy is attached).  The document consists of a series of statements, which are the "standards".  Each standard is then followed with a number of questions that would serve to form a rubric to see if you were doing everything you could to meet that standard.  I am assuming you feel that my sending the email to a resident explaining in detail why I didn't support the language of the bond proposal doesn't provide the "right answer" to comply with this question.  I am curious as to how you would have felt as a resident (in effect, my employer) if you had asked me why I didn't feel it was in your best interests that I vote not to support overly ambiguous bond language with an answer like "I am sorry but now that we have voted on this, I am not allowed to explain the reason for my vote to you". If I were asking the question of any public servant and I received that kind of answer, I would be livid.

     

    If the Board feels that not being able to answer one of the rubric questions under one of the standards in the affirmative is the reason for Board censure, then we will need to arrange a massive "group censure" of every board member we have, as no one on our Board can answer "yes" to every question under every statement because we are human.  Perhaps each of the MASB Governance Standards should be prefaced with the words "...In a perfect world.."  As an example, I have always been a believer in seeking out formal education in board and school system operations as referenced in Individual Standard, Item 2c.  It's the reason I have taken 50 plus certification classes from MASB, paying for the vast majority of them out of my own pocket.  Should the board members who didn't take advantage of the MASB classes those of us on the Executive Board of the Wayne County Association of School Boards worked so hard to bring to Detroit be censured because (unlike every other school system in the county) they chose not to attend the classes on School Finance and School Law?  Based on your reason for requesting my censure, should they be censured as well?

     

    Overriding both of these documents is the oath of office I swore when I joined our school board.  It states "...I will faithfully discharge the office of Member of the Board of Education of the Grosse Pointe Public School System to the best of my ability..."  I firmly believe not answering a constituent to the best of my ability would have been a violation of that oath.

     

    In closing, I hope the above explains my personal views on the points expressed in your email.  The other members of the board can, of course, do as they see fit with regards to your request that I am censured because of my response to one of our fellow community members.  The old adage, "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" I believe would be very apropos should this occur.

     

    Thank you and best wishes,

     

    Ahmed Ismail

     

    Grosse Pointe Public School System

    313-343-9060 (work phone - 8am - 5pm)

    313-969-1541 (cell phone - 6pm - 10pm)

    ahmed.ismail@comcast.net (personal email address)

     

    Note:  The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the balance of the Board of Trustees and/or the administration of the Grosse Pointe Public School System. Emails sent to or from this email address are accessible by the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).



    On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 8:23 PM  wrote:

    Brian Summerfield, GPPSS BOE President

     

     

     

    There is an email that is going around the community from Mr. Ismail. In the email, he offers arguments against the proposed school bond that is on the ballot November 6th. Some of these arguments he made during Board debate, others are his “interpretation” of the facts, and yet others are pure fabrication, especially around the almost two years of work by a Blue Ribbon Committee. In fact, Mr. Ismail says:

     

    “When I asked that the words “construction additions” be removed, there was no support from the Board.  The bond language was approved as above, with Mrs. Pangborn and I being the dissenting votes.”

     

    This admission is important and is the basis of my letter to you.

     

    With his statement, and his behind the scenes work to sabotage a voted on decision of the Board, Mr. Ismail is in violation of both Board By-Law 143.1 Public Expression of Board Members and the Board of Education Governance Standards endorsed by the Michigan State Board of Education and adopted by the GPPSS Board. These standards say that once a vote is taken, Board members must support that action, whether they voted for or against the action.

     

    No matter how the bond vote ends up, I believe that the Board should publicly censure Mr. Ismail for his actions against a legal vote of the Board.

     

    I have attached a copy of Mr. Ismail’s email.

     

    Respectfully,

     

     

     

     

    CC:       Don Wotruba, CE, Executive Director

    Michigan Association of School Boards

    dwotruba@masb.org