• From: Daniel Roeske [roesked@gpschools.com]
    Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2016 4:50 PM
    To: Ahmed Ismail
    Cc: Summerfield, Brian (GPPSS); Valente, Lois (GPPSS); Niehaus, Gary; McInerney, Mark; Fenton, Christian
    Subject: Re: GPPSS - Email Policy Thoughts

    Thank you  for your note. I will make certain to share with the committee as a part of our discussion.

    Dan

    On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 4:43 PM, Ahmed Ismail <ahmed@portraitplacegpw.com<mailto:ahmed@portraitplacegpw.com>> wrote:
    Hello, Dan,

    I know that you and the Policy Committee are meeting this evening to discuss the new policy proposed on Board member use of email.  I felt it best to share my thoughts with all of you on this prior to it being brought to the entire board for approval as I will not be able to attend the meeting and even if I did, it would have to be as an observer.

    I gathered from my interchange with Brian Summerfield at our last board meeting that one of the goals of this policy was to separate “Board member” emails and the comments therein from “community member” emails and that there was a concern by some about not being able to comply to FOIA requests when non-school system email addresses were being used.

    With regards to distinguishing board member from community member emails, I feel that any board member communicating with a community member should NOT be using an email address that in any way references “gpschools.com<http://gpschools.com>” for two reasons.  First, none of us on the board other than the board president should in any way be interpreted as speaking on behalf of the board or the school system.  The vast majority of residents would assume be reference that an email coming from “gpschools.com<http://gpschools.com>” is in some way speaking for the school system (certainly more so than an email coming from “portraitplacegpw.com<http://portraitplacegpw.com>” as an example).  Second, if one of our emails in any way becomes relevant in any kind of litigation, the fact that it references “gpschools.com<http://gpschools.com>” as the sender could end up being the tipping point on a jury or judicial decision as to whether the recipient of the email could reasonably infer that the subject email was in any way sent speaking on behalf of the school system.

    If the true concern of the policy committee is to avoid any confusion as to this issue, Board members should be instructed not to use a “gpschools.com<http://gpschools.com>” email address unless they are communicating as a representative of the school board or the school system.  No matter which way you decide to take this issue, your policy should require that board members use a disclaimer similar to the one at the bottom of this email so that there is no ambiguity as to who and in in what capacity the email is being sent.

    With regards to the FOIA concern, Mr. Fenton’s responsibility under the Freedom of Information Act is the provide public access to the qualifying information which is stored on our servers.  We are not in violation of any FOIA requirements now.  Please understand that I don’t have an issue with the public having access to this information at all.  Mr. Fenton will verify that I have been one of the most active FOIA recipients in the community, as I have always believed that the public has a right to know.  If the true goal of the Policy Committee is that the public have access to any school board related communication, then there are two options that would be much simpler and much more transparent.  The first option is to require that any school system related communication from ANYONE be cc’d to a school system repository email address.  That way, EVERY email no matter where it was sent from would be accessible to the public.  If you really want to be transparent, I would be fine with ALL emails sent by Board members being posted online regardless of which email account they are sent from or the number of other board members who are receiving the email.  As our policy sits now, it is very easy to “skirt” the transparency issue by simply not emailing three other Board members at the same time.

    In any event, those are my thoughts for your consideration.  No matter what is done as to which email account board members are required to use, any policy not requiring all board members to use a footer on all of their emails similar to the one below is only going to get us half way to where (I think) you want to be.

    Best wishes,

    Ahmed
     
    The above email is expressing the personal opinions of the sender and not those of the other members of the Board of Education and/or the Grosse Pointe Public School System itself.  In the event the recipient would like the official opinion and/or position of the Board of Education or the administration of the Grosse Pointe Public School System, the inquiry should be submitted to schoolboard@gpschools.org<mailto:schoolboard@gpschools.org>.  Thank you.