Board of Governors
American International School of Abuja (AISA)
Durumi, Abuja, FCT, Nigeria
Esteemed Members of the AISA Board of Governors (the “Board”),
We petition to you today as parents of AISA students, in our role as members of the AISA Association. We want to thank the Board for holding the Board-Community Town Hall Meeting last Wednesday, November 7. That meeting was a valuable opportunity for the Board to discuss various developments at AISA with the school community, and we hope you hold similar meetings on a regular basis in the future (perhaps once per trimester?). We firmly believe that the more that open communication takes place between the Board and the school community, the more we can all work together to move the school forward.
Following up that meeting, we would like to bring several issues to your attention regarding the gymnasium project. We appreciate the information provided at the Town Hall Meeting, but we require that four remaining unresolved issues regarding that project be addressed BEFORE the tender is issued for bidding:
(1) The Board indicated at that meeting that the project would be entirely financed by current reserves and annual revenues (i.e., no borrowing), but did not provide any details. Before the tender is issued, the Board must provide a complete financing plan to the school community. That complete financing plan must explain how much of the $12.9 million total estimated cost of the gym will be covered by the school’s current reserves (which currently total a little over $13 million, with a requirement that the reserves must never go below $3 million) and how much will be covered by future annual revenues. This financing plan is especially important in light of the fact that at the Town Hall Meeting the proposed construction schedule showed a completion date of July 2020, which therefore is also when nearly the entire cost of the gym would have to be paid to the construction contractors.
(2) The Board has not yet provided to the community sufficient information regarding the reasons for the estimated cost increase from $7-9 million in December 2016 to $12.9 million now. Before the tender is issued, the Board must provide the school community with a detailed breakdown of all the major elements added to the design since December 2016 and each major element’s individual contribution to the total estimated cost increase. At the Town Hall Meeting, the Board stated that the total cost of the faculty housing project is N2.6 billion, whereas at the current exchange rate the $12.9 million total estimated cost of the gym is equivalent to approximately N4.6 billion. Before making such a large capital investment in school facilities, the parents who provide nearly all of AISA’s revenue through our tuition and fees must know what we are getting for that price, and how that supports the school’s academic mission.
(3) Before the tender is issued, the Board must immediately appoint a Gym Project Committee with the authority to: study the current design; seek further school community input on that design; make a recommendation to the Board regarding the final design and total estimated cost; serve as the Tender Committee for the gym project, as the only body empowered by the Board to review construction bids in a transparent, objective, fair process and to make a recommendation to the Board regarding the winning bidder; and make a recommendation to the Board regarding a professional project manager. Under this arrangement, the Board will remain the body empowered by the AISA membership to make final decisions, but those decisions will be informed by a more transparent process with participation by the whole school community. Such a process will also serve to protect AISA’s and the Board’s reputation as we move forward with such a large construction project. To fulfill those goals, the Gym Project Committee must have representation by all elements of the school community and must be empowered to choose its own chair from among its parent, faculty or staff members (i.e., non-Board/non-student members), with eleven (11) voting members as follows:
a. Three (3) parents chosen by parents after a call for volunteers (one U.S. Embassy-affiliated parent, one Nigerian parent, and one parent of a third nationality);
b. Two (2) high school students chosen by a process determined by the school administration (one boy and one girl; perhaps most appropriately current tenth or eleventh graders who combine sufficient maturity with sufficient time left at the school to see the project through to significant progress, if not completion);
c. Two (2) faculty chosen by the Head of School (one from the elementary school and one from the secondary school – perhaps most appropriately the physical education/athletics faculty);
d. Two (2) staff members chosen by the Head of School (one expatriate – perhaps most appropriately the Business Manager who has been putting together the financing plan – and one local hire); and
e. Two (2) Board members chosen by the Board.
(4) The Board must hire a professional project manager to oversee the work of the contractor for the gym construction project (this is not the contractor’s project manager, but the school’s project manager), based on a recommendation by the Gym Project Committee. The Board does not have the expertise to manage such a large and complicated project, as it has recently demonstrated by the problems associated with its direct management of the faculty housing project, which has experienced significant delays in its completion and other issues. Furthermore, as with other school management issues, it is not the role of the Board to be involved so directly in the day-to-day and week-to-week management, but rather to provide ongoing higher-level oversight of the project.
Please note that some of us may wish to go forward with the gym as currently designed and costed at $12.9 million, some may favor constructing a gym but at a lower cost, and some may entirely oppose the whole idea of constructing a gym. Thus the point of this petition is not to make a decision about exactly what kind of gym we want for the school, but rather to ensure a participatory and transparent process that allows for all of these views to be heard before the school community as a whole comes to agreement and decides how to move forward regarding the gym.
The Board made the argument at the Town Hall Meeting last week that parents, faculty and staff were consulted earlier in the process of conceptualizing and designing the gym. However, that was when the total cost was either approximately $5 million or $7-9 million. Now that the total cost has escalated to $12.9 million, it is incumbent upon the Board to re-engage the school community in a meaningful manner, as we have outlined with the four points above, before moving ahead with the tender.
Thanks very much and we look forward to working together to resolve these issues and fulfill our shared goals regarding AISA’s future.
Sincerely yours,
