APS School Board Member's mettle to be tested.

Wednesday,late afternoon, uptown; a vote will be taken. Whatever else is true about that vote; so is the following:

The vote will take place during the workday; at a time and in a place that is convenient for the leadership of the APS; but not for many other stakeholders.

In stark constrast to a time when board meetings were held in the evening, and at a number of different locations in their school board districts.

At those meetings there was a public forum; at which a citizen could exercise the right to speak to their representative on the board. The public forum was on the record; and there were no unjustifiable limitations on freedom of speech. They never tried to claim any right to refuse to allow questions to be asked as an expression of free speech.

The current board is going to vote to change board policy. They seek to "legalize", their previous misconduct and efforts to deny the exercise of free speech rights during public forums.

They have previously broadcast deliberately falsified records of board meetings.

They are voting to permanently remove the public forum from the public record.

They are voting to limit the topics at the public forum, to only those issues that are on the(ir) agenda.

They are doing this in order to avoid a public record of their refusal, by stonewalling, to answer the following question:

As a public servant, as a steward of the public trust and treasure, as a senior role model for 98,000 of our student sons and daughters; will you hold yourself accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct?

Will you, in your public service, hold yourself accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct; by a system over which you have no control; and even against your will; for eight measly hours a day?

Any answer except yes is no.

There is only one reason not to answer the question. It is because the answer is no.

If the leadership of the APS; as senior role models for students, were expected to hold themselves accountable to the student standard of conduct; they would be expected to answer the question. But they are not required to answer the question, because they are no longer accountable to the student standard of conduct; because they struck the following language from their own standard of conduct;

in no case shall the standard for an adult be lower than the standard for students.

They are not accountable to the student standard of conduct by their own deliberate actions.

The leadership of the APS enforces a standard of conduct upon students that they will not enforce upon themselves.

They are modeling only hypocrisy.

They are not accountable to any meaningful standard of conduct. In truth, they are not accountable to the law; the lowest standard of acceptable conduct. Public money and the Modral Law Firm have excepted the leadership of the APS from accountability, even to the law.

They are going to take a vote Wednesday. Denying the right of citizens to petition their goverment on any issue and on the record; is a diametically opposite action to transparent accountability; which includes the right of citizens to petition their goverment on any issue, and on the record.

What ever else they say they are "voting" on, they are really voting on;

continued covert evasion of accountability, even to the law,
or,
transparent accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct.

The choice is clear.

And so is the meaning of the vote cast by each member of the board.

For what it's worth; I demand a roll call vote.

For what it's worth; I demand that the Journal and the Trib investigate and report upon this issue in time for voters to hold their elected representatives accountable for the conduct and their competence; at the school board meeting Wednesday.