APS critics need to "get a life"

A woman in Wichita read about allegations that APS Supt Winston Brooks is a bully. The Journal reports, link, that she took the time to email APS Board Members to inform them about Brooks' misconduct in a school board meeting in Wichita a decade ago.

School Board President Marty Esquivel "lost it" with her in the resulting exchange of emails. At one point, he found himself writing

"You sound like a nut job, so stop e-mailing me."

He has written as much to me;

"downright nutty", "You’re acting nutty.","You are lucid, at times, and then downright nutty."

He tends to call people nuts instead of responding directly to their questions and concerns. He says I am nuts because I think he should be telling the truth to stakeholders,

• about his abdication from senior most role model of the student standards of conduct, and
• about corruption in the APS Police Department, and
• about the denial of due process to hundreds of whistle blower complaints.

He wrote to the woman; "get a life." He wrote the same to me;

"It seems to me that there are probably more productive things to do with your life.

Until he told me to stop; I was in the habit of sending to Esquivel a link to any posts I wrote about him that were critical. He had the opportunity to respond and rebut everything I have ever written. He wrote;

I don't communicate through blogs. Sorry." and

"Don't waste your time with cowardly posts. If you have something to say to me, be a man."

Well, I tried that too. I went to public forums at school board meeting and addressed him "man to man". He had me arrested and banned me from board meetings.

When he told me he had no intention of responding to my posts by means of comments, I offered him another opportunity;

You wrote... I am not going to engage with you through posts on your blog.

Fair enough, then you name the time, the place, the participants, and ALL of the rules, save two; it will be on the record, and it will be candid, forthright, and honest.

I would appreciate a meeting at your earliest opportunity.

That meeting of course, was never arranged. he wrote;

"I am too busy, sorry.

There isn't a single member of the leadership of the APS who is willing to sit still and agree to respond to legitimate questions candidly, forthrightly and honestly.

Esquivel has trouble distinguishing between the message and the messenger; the question and the questioner. Or perhaps he can distinguish between them and chooses deliberately to kill the messenger rather than respond to his questions.

The question is; does Brooks have anger management issues, and do those issues create a hostile work environment for his subordinates. Those were the allegations made by an APS senior administrator before she was banished from 6400 Uptown Blvd.

It doesn't make any difference who asks a legitimate question or why. The legitimacy of the question is self evident. Any effort to question the questioner amounts to nothing more than a red herring whose purpose is to deflect attention from the fact that the question is not being answered.

Esquivel said;

"I have details about this person and things she was saying, and feel that her motive was malicious and she had an ax to grind."

Esquivel will also argue, he knows details about me. He tried to use the threat of publicizing those "details" in an effort to get me to stop asking questions in public forums, link.

He says, I too am malicious and have an ax to grind. Assume, for the sake of argument only, that my motives are malicious and that I do have an ax to grind; my questions about role modeling, public corruption and denial of due process, are still legitimate questions; questions Esquivel won't answer.

The Journal of course, missed the point entirely. Instead of standing up and demanding an impartial investigation of a hostile work environment for APS employees, it reports selectively in an effort to protect Esquivel and Brooks.

The did not mention in their report, for example, that Brooks had a blow up much more recently than a decade ago, link. It happened after the NMPED meeting on charter schools. It is alleged that Brooks used foul language with a principal and then battered him on the way out of the room.

The allegation would be easy to investigate and report upon; the room was full of witnesses.

It will not be reported upon now, for the same reasons the Journal and Kent Walz did not investigate and report upon it then.




photo Mark Bralley