What you can do; what I will do.

Today, I will file my notarized intention to run for election in APS School District 4.

Doing so will awaken a giant.

At stake, control over power and resources that are fundamentally your own.

Those who have usurped that control are loathe to give it back. They will not give it back; not without a fight.

Corrupt and incompetent administrators and board members who will not survive transparent accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, will resist establishing those standards and providing that accountability.

They will fight back.

They are powerful and they are resourceful.

They have a publicly funded private police force to defend them. It is certified, certificated and accredited by no one; no one except the leadership of the APS. It is a praetorian guard in every sense of the concept. It reports directly to, and only to, the leadership of the APS.

They have what is arguably the most powerful lawyers in the state, and an unlimited litigation budget. Their record is of spending millions of public education dollars litigating exception to the law for APS administrators and board members.

They have an attorney general who is fine with the praetorian guards investigating their own corruption and then hiding evidence of felony criminal misconduct involving APS senior administrators from the DA.

They have a district attorney who will not demand the immediate surrender of evidence of felony criminal misconduct involving APS senior administrators.

They have a state auditor who is fine with the APS Board of Education making a solemn promise of due process for whistle blower complaints and then reneging. And who will not reveal the name of the senior APS administrator who lied to his investigator when she reported that the APS Audit Committee had in fact given complaints their due process.

They have every administrator, politician and public servant who knows about the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS and has done nothing.

They have a foundation for open government, that not only won't fight for public records of the corruption, but actually gave a transparency award to the hero who's hiding them.

They have a local civil liberties union who has expressed no interest in intervening in blatant abuse of the civil rights of those exercising their rights to free speech, to petition the government, and to be a free press.

They have a chamber of commerce willing to abandon Character Counts! providing more cover for the administrators and board members abdicating as role models the APS Student Standards of Conduct.

And maybe most importantly, they have a newspaper editor
and news directors who are willing to sit on it all;
even in the face of an election.

For my part, I will carry and fight for our standard;

government that is transparently accountable
to the people.

As a role model for students,

I will hold myself honestly accountable to any standard of conduct that I establish and enforce upon them. I will insist that the role modeling clause be restored to the adult standards of conduct; which will read;

In no case shall the standards of conduct for adults,
be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

In response to any legitimate question about the public interests or my public service, I will stand and deliver a response that is candid, forthright and honest.

Or I will resign.

For your part, you must pick the right side,
recognizing that when you pick no side,
you pick the wrong side.

I'm not saying these people are evil, but when Edmund Burke wrote; all that is necessary for evil to prevail in the world, is for good men to do nothing,
these are the people he was writing about.

Stand up for what you believe in.

I once helped hand out some tee shirts to students.
On the shirt's front and back, it read;

Stand up for what you believe in ...
... even if you are standing alone.

Any student standing up for what they believe in,
should not be standing alone.
There should be an adult behind them offering support,
an adult beside them helping to carry the load, and
an adult in front of them, leading by their example.

If we really what children to grow up to embrace character
and courage and honor,
someone has to show them what it looks like.

Telling children a fairy tail about embracing honest
accountability to meaningful standards of conduct isn't
enough. Someone has to show them what it looks like.

Someone has to walk the talk.

Anyone who is not willing to step up a role model of the
APS Student Standards of Conduct, has no business sitting
on the school board, or in an office at 6400 Uptown Blvd,
or in a principal's office, or behind a teacher's desk.

Character counts.

Students have a right to role models of their standards of conduct.