I've been waiting15 years, I guess I can wait another month.

It was in 1994, that the APS School Board unanimously
adopted the Pillars of Character Counts! as
the student standard of conduct.

Very shortly thereafter, the District paid Character Counts!
founding father Michael Josephson to come to Albuquerque
to train the first group of "trainers".

I was among those first 30 teachers who were trained to train
school staffs and community groups on the principles of
Character Counts!. Over the next decade or so, I trained
literally thousands of students about Character Counts!.
I led more than three dozen trainings of school staffs and
community groups. Among audience members, a sitting APS
Superintendent and a sitting state Governor.

I know Character Counts! forwards and backwards.
I doubt that there is anyone in the entire APS who is very much
more qualified than I, to speak about the principles and tenets
of Character Counts!.

It became apparent to me, very early in the game,
that these were going to be standards that applied to students,
but not to adults. And they were therefore, doomed to fail.
Students simply reject double standards as a matter of course.

In particular it was not going to apply to administrators or board
members. The proof of that particular allegation, lies in the fact
that the board voted to remove the role modeling clause
from their own standards of conduct, rather than be held
honestly accountable as role models of
the Pillars of Character Counts!.

Over the next dozen years, my efforts to get administrators and
board members to step up as role models (by submitting to
honest accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts!)
led to all manner of retribution and retaliation, including an
unjust termination, the defamation of my character, and
multiple illegal arrests for trying to bring up the subject at
board meetings. The evidence that these allegations could
easily be true, comes from an audit of the leadership of the APS,
by the Council of the Great City Schools.
Their auditors wrote that;

APS has a culture of fear of retribution and retaliation.

I was neither the first, nor the last, to fall victim to that culture.

I vowed that what had happened to me,
would not happen to another teacher in my circumstances.

15 years later, I am still waiting for the leadership of the APS
to tell the truth about their actual accountability to any
standards of conduct at all. I have often argued, and the record
substantiates the fact that, the leadership of the APS cannot
claim honest accountability even to the law.

It looks now, like the discussion will finally take place.

Thanks in no small part to the character and courage of men
like board members David Robbins and Lorenzo Garcia,
it looks like an on the record discussion will finally take place.

I have always believed, and still do, that if the discussion takes
place on the record, the leadership of the APS will have no
justification to continue their abdication as role models of the
student standard of conduct. On the record, and with people
paying attention, they simply cannot argue against the need,
and the undeniable propriety, of restoring to their own code
of conduct, the phrase;

In no case shall the standard of conduct for an adult,
be lower than the standard of conduct for students.

It has been a long time coming, but stakeholders will find
that it has been worth the wait.