from:    Valarie St. John <stjohnv@gpschools.org>
to:    XXXXX
cc:    Ahmed Ismail <ismaila@gpschools.org>,
Schoolboard Email <schoolboard@gpschools.org>,
stanlec@gpschools.org
date:    Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 1:41 PM
subject:    Re: Stand up for the kids

Hello XXXXX,

Thank you for bringing our attention to this matter. I have had a number of community members contact me regarding this odd communication. My first step was also to ask Dr. Stanley about it, and he immediately investigated (thank you for doing this over the holiday!), and assured me that the district does not maintain an iCloud contact list with these community members, and certainly wouldn’t have given a member of the public access to any internal listservs.

While I don’t understand XXXXX’s intent with copying you and many other community members on the email, it would appear they (or someone they knows) compiled this contact list independently. Our technology department has looked into the matter and determined that there aren’t any security concerns related to the email, but I understand your concerns about privacy. Again, no district employee would have given your email address to XXXXX, so they obtained this information another way.

Happy New Year,
Valarie St. John
(she/her/hers)
GPPSS Board of Education trustee

On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 1:29 PM XXXXX wrote:
President Ismail and Mr. Stanley - 

First off, my apologies for bothering you on a holiday, but I wanted to alert you to something important that I kindly request you investigate when you return to the office. This matter has impacted a number of community members - and the real impact of how many Grosse Pointers remains unclear at the moment. 

Last evening, XXXXX - who is a Grosse Pointer who has a long and verified history of digital and in-person harassment - sent the email below to a number of their fellow community members. While the email itself is not upsetting (I do not agree with it), it is upsetting that they somehow accessed my email address, and those of a number of others, and created/used a mass listserv to contact us without our consent. They also included the email address of the GPPSS school board. 

The reason I am reaching out to you two is because I would like clarity and an affirmation that my contact information was not shared with XXXXX or uploaded to an accessible, shared iCloud account via my correspondence and digital interactions with GPPSS. All of us who have been included in last night's email from XXXXX all applied to be on GPSS committees - and/or we regularly email the board. I hope that that is somehow an unfortunate coincidence and not a security breach, and I would appreciate a timely and thorough review of what happened here. 

Thank you for your consideration. I am also cc'ing Trustees Worden and St. John as they too have been targets of XXXXX's harassment, and I want them looped in on this matter. 

Best regards, 

XXXXX 

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: XXXXX
Date: Sat, Dec 30, 2023 at 6:40 PM
Subject: Stand up for the kids
To: schoolboard@gpschools.org <schoolboard_at_gpschools_org_9vv972yd4g4977_d2bf2ffb@icloud.com>

Good evening, Board and community members. If you haven’t read through it yet, I am asking each of you to consider reviewing this essay on what is happening across our country: https://tomklingenstein.com/a-primer-on-wokeism/
You can also find the essay here: 
 https://www.commentary.org/articles/bari-weiss/resist-woke-revolution/
It is a penetrating and concise description of the terrible actions of the mob that are stifling thought and discouraging free speech throughout our country. I have witnessed the same in our community. There are many, usually on the far left, attacking people personally and not their ideas. This angry group toils to assassinate the character, cancel and terrorize those that they believe are their opposition. We all watched while these self-proclaimed progressives tried that with BOE Trustees Sean Cotton, Lisa Papas, Ahmed Ismail, Terry Collins, and Ginny Jeup.
 
The Grosse Pointe Schools demand courage from those in charge of the future of the children. Stand up for the children and fight for them! I am optimistic that most in our healthy community support the success of the children and are not part of the system trying to fill their heads with nonsense like you find with the toxic few that come to every school board meeting. I hope that everyone here can say with absolute certainty that they only want the children to succeed as individuals. I hope that everyone here categorically rejects any and all efforts to destroy the self-esteem of any child just to further their agenda.

Respectfully,
XXXXX
XXXXX