According to the APS news release; link
Barela told the board he was honored and humbled to be
appointed to the vacancy.
“I’ll work hard and I’ll always conduct myself with
the highest degree of integrity and openness,” he said.
In the first test of his integrity and openness,
Board member Barela,
A candid, forthright, and honest response please,
to the question of the need for an immediate, impartial,
full scale forensic audit of the entire leadership of the APS.
cc Jon Barela c.o. the school board office.
3 comments:
Ched;
I looked up the laws and spoke to representatives of PED (Ms. Friedman - PIO)and the Board that regulates SBs (Mr Joe Guinn's office - 1-505-983-5041).
They were given the exact circumstance of Mr. Barela being appointed with no election; they both told me that no official malfeasance or rule-breaking seems to have occurred. The reasoning? It is standard practice in the whole state to allow appointments between elections, no official verbiage has been made into NMAC or Statutes or even a policy book that defines when School Board seats should be left vacant or a special election should be held when a BM leaves before the end of his/her term.
Jon Barela will enforce upon students a standard of conduct which requires students to do more than the law requires and less than the law allows.
Just because something is "legal" doesn't make it ethical.
Laws change with time. Hemlines and where pants are worn (under the ass!?!) change with time. There is a rebellion of youth that recurs every generation. They push our buttons until we run out of patience, politeness and professionalism and launch mid-life crisis ethical survival bombs.
So, yes, laws must change with time, or our tolerance to bullshit must change, I guess if the laws don't change with the mores and social conventions.
I hate not being able to have it both ways. I want to stay entrenched in "what I know works" (leaning on sleazy administrators until they throw me a Moon to gnaw on, for me to wrap up in pretty pieces for the DA), but know that things have changed a lot since I was a school guard, the whole damn world is changing every second.
Staying entrenched in Ethics means the principles of ethics to me, which in my world means that they are relevant to my current needs and the needs of those others in the social contract with me here in America.
The kids that APS recently graduated? I now go to school with them at TVI. Those badass differently abled kids are making a college go of it DESPITE the education they didn't get. I am ashamed to say I worked for APS when I hear the horror stories that come out after high school, from northeast heights kids that could have been MY kids. Christ help us.
But I also do NOT want for Christian, Hasidic, Muslim or any other kind of religious militia to tell us how to act or dress or who to date. They will soon burn witches if that happens, is ALLOWED to happen again. We have to be civil and agree to disagree sometimes, to pick our battles.
An ongoing and hard to eradicate TRADITION of genital mutilation for African Muslim women goes with valuing sexual "ethics" over African Law. The Ku Klux Klan has "traditional values" contrary to American law that I would not like transferred on except in history books, but they can exist too. And we ethical guardians, the defenders of the educational faith? Must be sure not to become those misguided souls who birthed the customs of wearing a white sheet (and beating up people not your same shade of human) and cutting off of female external genitalia.
Anyways, here is the law that Beverly Freidman cited, she called me back with the statute number and everything, the link to Conway Greene, she got back to me really quick:
--------------------
22-5-9. Local school board vacancies.
A. A vacancy occurring in the membership of a local school board shall be filled at an open meeting at which a quorum of the membership is present, by a majority vote of the remaining members appointing a qualified person to fill the vacancy.
B. A qualified person appointed to fill a vacancy occurring in the membership of a local school board shall hold that office until the next regular school district election when an election shall be held to fill the vacancy for the unexpired term.
C. If a qualified person is not appointed to fill the vacancy within forty-five days from the date the vacancy occurred, the state board [department] shall appoint a qualified person to fill the vacancy until the next regular school district election.
D. In the event vacancies occur in a majority of the full membership of a local school board, the state board [department] shall appoint qualified persons to fill the vacancies. Those persons appointed shall hold office until the next regular or special school district election when an election shall be held to fill the vacancies for the unexpired terms.
-------------------
Post a Comment