From: Lisa Papas <papasl@gpschools.org>
Date: Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 11:46 AM
Subject: Re: Administration
To: Valarie St. John <stjohnv@gpschools.org>
Cc: Andrea Tuttle <tuttlea@gpschools.org>, Schoolboard Email <schoolboard@gpschools.org>, Sean Cotton <cottons@gpschools.org>

Ms St. John,  

First and foremost, as a Trustee of this public school system, your priority is to represent our system and oversee it.    Oversight does not mean denigrating and creating false rumors.   

Our administration is looking into the food service account and had plans to meet with Taher to get answers.  

The State of Michigan changed the way it was reimbursing meals this year , so it is entirely possible that we haven’t received those reimbursements yet.  

Your incessant need to share information on social media that creates a negative perception of our district has the potential to hurt our enrollment and confidence in our district.  This is a violation of your fiduciary responsibility as a Trustee. 

The Taher contract was executed by Jon Dean and Amanda Matheson.   They are the ones that should be held accountable for any issues with the contract. 

You voted for the contract last summer. 

You have a new Superintendent.  Perhaps you could allow her time to look into issues and address them before you announce and debate them?     Social media is not the place to do that.  

You claim to always be supporting the administration, but you make disrespectful and false comments about Brandi and her position.  

You owe her a public apology.

Every comment you make is done assuming bad intent and appears to always portray your fellow board members badly.    I would have to assume it is political or perhaps you are just lacking professional courtesy and social graces.  

I wouldn’t put up with your behavior in my middle school classroom. 

Your position is to do your best to represent the district.   You can certainly hold the district and Board accountable without constantly inferring that there is something secretive or shady going on.  

There are quite possibly a number of families that may have lost confidence in our district due to your constant negative comments. 

I believe you should be censored for your repeated comments that are always full of half truths and reflect poorly on all of us.  You have spent most of your time on this Board going after other Board members and have cost our district thousands of dollars in legal fees and strain on our administrators. 

I think it would be advisable to stop your use of social media.   Only President Cotton has the authority to speak for the Board.  

Lisa Papas, Trustee

Grosse Pointe Public School System

313-618-9615  (after 3 p.m. M-F)  and weekends

lisaapapas@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 Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 10:35 AM Valarie St. John <stjohnv@gpschools.org> wrote:

President Cotton,

I am not sure if you are addressing me, since this was BCCd, but since I did comment on the GPPSS Community Discussion page, I will speak to some of your points.

I don’t think it’s appropriate to call any group in our community “a cesspool of liars and disinformation.” Every large social media group is subject to rumors, of course, which is why I try to comment with facts. It is certainly not my intent to disparage anyone in our central office, and if Ms. Pavlik feels that any of my comments placed blame on her, I will absolutely apologize. She is of course capable and competent, but the sudden departure of Ms. Matheson, and Ms. Pavlik’s need to fulfill dual roles for a time (as well as her replacement currently filling two roles as we post that vacancy - what I referred to as a “cascade effect” that happens when someone resigns and we promote from within), may have caused this overspending from Taher to not be prioritized. I think we as a board need to take responsibility for this, because it is our job to oversee the budget. 

I am not up for re-election this year, and honestly I don’t plan to ever hold elected office again, since it seems to interfere with my ability to do anything else in this community. I’m not sure why you assume that every criticism is political. My intent here is to reassure the community that, now that we have hired a superintendent and (hopefully) we won’t be losing any more executive administrators, these kinds of budget errors won’t happen in the future. If you have a different explanation for Taher’s overspending, please share. I didn’t hear anything from you on the topic at the most recent meeting, so it seemed like you were just as surprised as the public about it.

It is important that we demonstrate to the community that we are paying attention to the district finances. I look forward to your explanation of how this excessive cost happened.

Sincerely,

Valarie St. John
(she/her/hers)
GPPSS Board of Education trustee

On Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 9:40 AM Sean Cotton <cottons@gpschools.org> wrote:

I am writing this email as Dr. Tuttle is not on social media, which I envy her for.  I am going to send her screenshots from several of the more rotten Facebook groups.  Especially that cesspool of liars and disinformation, the GPPSS Community Discussion Page.

There seems to be a misconception that Brandy Pavlik is not the Head of the GPPSS' Finance Department.  It is spelled Pavlik by the way, not Pawlik.  Brandy is the CFO of the GPPSS, just as Chris Stanley is the CIO, Roy Bishop is the COO and Andrea Tuttle is the CEO.  If you are using those kinds of titles for our organization.  Officially, Brandy's title is Executive Director of Finance and Operations.  Yes, Amanda Matheson's title was Deputy Superintendent for Business Operations; however, that does not change that as Executive Director Brandy is the Head of Finance.  There is not an open position above her as everyone that is part of this organization and pays attention well knows.  Just as Keith Howell as Executive Director is the Head of Curriculum and Chris Stanley as Executive Director is Head of Information Systems.

Furthermore, I cannot believe I have to write this out, but as a trustee of an organization you should support that organization.  As much as I disagreed with Jon Dean's leadership style, I supported him and the organization as a trustee.  To sit and watch on one of those sites where you are active and allow people to rip into our administrator's is one thing.  Not everyone wants to get involved.  Though if you are often involved I would think you would want to support.  However, to contribute to the misinformation?   Now that is just reprehensible.  It appears to me to be purely political.  So now there will be the trashing of the Administration until the election?  Purely disgusting is what it is.  

Last, I have said it before and will say it again.  Brandy Pavlik is one of the most capable finance executives that I have encountered.  Not all of you have encountered many finance leaders and that is clear.  Or even have a grasp of finances.  I have worked with many and she is at the top in terms of capability and discipline.  She is absolutely the best that I have encountered when it comes to school finances.      

Sean P. Cotton
President 

Grosse Pointe Public School System

cottons@gpschools.org

www.gpschools.org

20601 Morningside Dr, Grosse Pointe Woods, MI 48236

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).