From: Judy Gafa [mailto:gafaj@gpschools.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2016 2:45 PM
To: Niehaus, Gary
Cc: Cindy Pangborn; Howell, Keith; Dean, Jon; Fenton, Christian; ahmed@portraitplacegpw.com; Brian Summerfield; Cindy Pangborn - Grosse Pointe Public School System (pangboc@gpschools.com); Dan Roeske; Ismail, Ahmed (GPPSS); Lois Valente; Margaret Weertz
Subject: Re: Early fives

Thank you Gary. We appreciate your attention to detail

Judy

On Wednesday, May 18, 2016, Niehaus, Gary <Gary.Niehaus@gpschools.org> wrote:

Cindy,

I will ask Keith Howell to send you the distribution of students.  We have students from all nine elementary school attending the three Young Five classrooms at Poupard Elementary School, Defer Elementary School and Mason Elementary School.  We are adding potentially 72 students the Young Fives program.  We have three kindergarten teachers picked to teach the Young Fives.  The Board of Education did approve the Young Five program in December, 2015.  We are getting state aid for each student.  We have thoughtfully tried to maximize our class sizes and class rooms to meet our needs.  To add a Young Five Program is each elementary school would not be in our best interest financially.

Believe me, we have added three Young Five classrooms, two 3//4 Pre-K-Tuition program at Monteith Elementary School and Richard Elementary School  and considered more in 2016 - 2017.  We believe that your idea of expanding quality programs is exactly what we are trying to do.  Incrementally, we will add where we have classrooms available.  Kerby Elementary School is completely full for 2016 - 2107.

I believe the Board of Education and superintendent are trying to expanding our enrollment, provide quality programs for our young families and trying to do it proactively and financially responsible.

Thanks,
GCN

-----Original Message-----
From: Cindy Pangborn [mailto:cindypangborn@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2016 9:43 AM
To: Niehaus, Gary
Cc: Howell, Keith; Dean, Jon; Fenton, Christian; ahmed@portraitplacegpw.com; Brian Summerfield; Cindy Pangborn - Grosse Pointe Public School System (pangboc@gpschools.com); Dan Roeske; Ismail, Ahmed (GPPSS); Judy Gafa; Lois Valente; Margaret Weertz
Subject: Re: Early fives

Curious...just "for fun"...and it may be too late to pull in some residents because of commitments and payment to private and parochial schools,  but...what if we just asked everyone of our elementary schools if there are students who would be enrolled in our early fives program...after all, if we are running a small class at Poupard  we can run small classes everywhere for this age group.  What would it hurt?  I'm tired of the poster child for innovation and waiting lists for the elementary schools, being the multi-age classroom.  Twenty years it has been a Pilot Program...20  years ? !   Why haven't we expanded this successful program , even though it has proven year after year to be a winner? The only answer I remember hearing at a Board meeting was that they couldn't find another teacher as wonderful as the one teacher that teaches this class.  There is no excuse for this.  Will we drop this program when the current teacher retires ? This is laziness...no real commitment to a winning program that could bring residents back to our schools .  The program works or it doesn't.  Let's make a decision.  We are thumbing our noses at opportunities that exist and have the potential to bring residents back into the public school system.  We are not paying attention to what our community, as a whole, expects. I'm  afraid we are looking for fast , " easy " ways to increase revenue when the answers are right in front of us, with our own residents.
Please don't turn this into an expose' of hard everyone works. .you would be mistaken, if you think that is my complaint.  I want action on what we can do to bring back residents to our school system.  The Board, Administration and faculty need to commit to a line by line assessment not only on budget but on curriculum.  I am hearing to much "we can't"  not "we will".  We know what the community wants, we have to make sure we deliver.
Cindy
Sent from my iPad

> On May 17, 2016, at 3:00 PM, Niehaus, Gary <Gary.Niehaus@gpschools.org> wrote:
>
> Cindy,
>
> We currently have availability for 9 more students in our Young 5s program at Poupard.  We wanted three new Young Five classrooms for next fall.  I understand that if we open a fourth section at Monteith Elementary School we would take most of the Star of the Sea Young Fives.  Monteith Elementary School is a future site.  We have to keep the Poupard Elementary School Young Five program open.  I appreciate your thoughts and understand the need at Monteith.  It will be a future site.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Keith Howell
> Director of PreK-Elementary Instruction
> 313-432-3044  keith.howell@gpschools.org
> Twitter: @principalhowell
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cindy Pangborn [mailto:cindypangborn@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2016 8:48 AM
> To: Howell, Keith; Niehaus, Gary
> Subject: Early fives
>
> Hello Keith,
> Are we going to expand early fives for 16-17? What is the plan moving forward?
> I am getting calls, mostly from Montieth parents, about why this isn't being expanded, given the interest for this program.
> Cindy,
>
> Sent from my iPad