From: Ismail, Ahmed (GPPSS)
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2016 11:22:26 AM (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
To: Judy Gafa
Cc: School Board
Subject: Our Losses on our Infant and Toddler Programs and our Waiting List

Mrs. Gafa,

I am in the process of reviewing and responding to all of the emails you have sent me the past few days, some of which I find quite disappointing.

In order to make them easy to follow, I am going to respond to each of them individually.  I will annex your email to the bottom of each of my emails so that there is absolutely no confusion as to the context of my response. 

First, I am hoping Mr. Howell and Mr. Fenton have verified for you that the loss amounts per student that I have quoted are from the spreadsheets Mr. Howell provided to all of us (copy attached).  To the extent there are revisions to them, by way of a copy of this email, I am requesting that Mr. Howell or Mr. Fenton forward them to me.

Second, with regards to your statement that there is a waiting list for the Infant and Toddler Programs that have been the subject of my emails, I do not doubt that there would be a waiting list for them.  The situation is similar to a Black Friday sale, as we are selling a product that is in demand at under our cost.

Third, with regards to your comment about a board member having a tuition amount wrong, I don't believe you will find this the case in this instance.

Fourth, if you recall back to when these programs were under discussion in November, a commitment was made when I asked the question about pricing and putting the proper value on our brand and hence the product we are offering, the answer was that pricing would be set that reflected the incredible value our brands adds to these offerings. That did not happen.

Fifth, the warped logic I have sometimes heard argued that we need to combine our Pre-K program with the losses in our Infant and Toddler Programs when looking at our revenues has no business basis, as the success of one of the three programs does not depend on the success of the other.  As an example, no one in our administration will ever be able to provide data to say that if we had no Infant or Toddler Program that our Pre-K program would suffer.

In closing, you are most correct in your statement that the Infant and Toddler Programs are in demand and are valued by the community.  I am all for expanding all three of the programs and filling the demand as long as it is at a market driven price that reflects the value of our brand and they do not individually cost us tax dollars that are desperately needed to repair our buildings. 

Thank you,

Ahmed Ismail

Ahmed Ismail, Trustee

Grosse Pointe Public School System

Phone: 313-343-9060 (The Portrait Place - 10am-5pm)

Email: ismaila@gpschools.com

Notice to Recipient:  The views expressed in this transmittal and its attachments (if any) are those of its author individually and are not necessarily shared by the other members of the Grosse Pointe Public School System's Board of Trustees and/or its administration.  If you would like the official school board position on an issue or would like to communicate to all of the members of the school board at once, please send your email to schoolboard@gpschools.org.  Thank you. 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Judy Gafa <gafaj@gpschools.com>
Date: Fri, 6 May 2016 13:30:48 -0400
Subject: Re: FW: Your Questions re: School System Financial Losses On Infant and 2-3 Toddler Programs
Can Mr Howell and Mr Fenton please double check Mr Ismails math and the loss he claims our infant program is making

We have a wait list for our infant program. I have been contacted by multiple families with young children who have requested we expand the program as infant care is hard to find.  One young family intends to use our pre-school because they were so happy with the infant program

I certainly hope any figures that are being given out are correct as we saw at a previous board meeting one member had the tuition wrong

Thank you Keith and Chris

Judy Gafa