Abandon Character Counts!

The leadership of the APS is about to review and approve, link, changes in the APS Student Behavior Handbook, link.

On page 3 of that document, it is written;

CITIZENSHIP

Students are expected to be good citizens. They are expected to:

• model and promote the pillars of CHARACTER COUNTS! (Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship)
• respect authority, property, and the rights of others.
• avoid confrontation and any activity that has the potential to cause a verbal or physical conflict.
• maintain standards of integrity and responsibility.
• maintain a safe school environment.
• report any/all information/circumstances related to campus safety and problems (fights, weapons, or drugs on campus).

Let's look at them bullet by bullet.

• model and promote the pillars of CHARACTER COUNTS! (Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship)

If you are aware of the tenets expressed in the Pillars, you know that fundamental to them is holding one's self honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct. Given that premise, there is only one way to "model" the Pillars; that is to hold yourself honestly accountable to them.

There is not one single person in the entire leadership of the APS willing to hold themselves honestly accountable to the Pillars of Character Counts!, even for the few hours a day they're expecting students to hold themselves accountable.

Two standards of conduct; a higher standard for students and lower one for adults is untenable; it is morally unacceptable.

That the leadership of the APS removed and will not restore the role modeling clause to their own standards of conduct, is proof of their intention.

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

The leadership of the APS have abdicated as role models of the student standards of conduct.

• Students are expected to respect authority, property, and the rights of others.

Yet the leadership of the APS is using their publicly funded private police force to deny the free exercise of Constitutionally protected human rights, at school board meetings.

• avoid confrontation and any activity that has the potential to cause a verbal or physical conflict.

Yet that seems to be normal for many members of the leadership of the APS. Witness APS Supt Winston Brooks many blow ups and Marty Esquivel's emails.

• maintain standards of integrity and responsibility.

There is not one whit of difference between the highest standards of conduct and the lowest, in the absence of honest accountability to them. Maintaining standard means enforcing them.

• maintain a safe school environment.
• report any/all information/circumstances related to campus safety and problems (fights, weapons,or drugs on campus).
  

An audit by the Council of the Great City Schools found administrators "routinely" falsifying crime statistics at schools to protect their image.

If the Pillars of Character Counts! are too high a standard for administrators and board members, they cannot be the standard for students. Why would we, how could we, expect them to hold themselves honestly accountable to a higher standard of conduct than their adult role models will?

If we really want kids to grow up to embrace honor and character and courage; someone has to be willing to show them what it looks like.

Better to have low expectations than high expectations with no role models.

If the leadership of the APS is unwilling to hold themselves accountable to same high standards as students, we have no choice but to lower the expectation for students to a low enough point that the leadership of the APS will step up as role models.

To do otherwise is simply to model hypocrisy; at its worst.