Brooks and the board pulling a fast one

Originally, the Policy and Instruction Committee was scheduled to meet on May 8th. Without explanation, it has been moved to tomorrow night. Whatever the reason for the change, it is exponentially more difficult to gather resistance. Not that anyone who goes to the meeting will be allowed meaningful participation;

Committee Chair David Peercy flat will not allow public input as part of any meeting he chairs.

He really has no interest in hearing from stakeholders, his idea of communication is, getting their message out.

During his diatribe on consideration of the Citizens Advisory Council on Communication petition, he used the phrase "get the message out" no less than seven times.

It is his committee that buried public discussion, link, of board member's obligations as role models of APS student standards of conduct, the Pillars of Character Counts!

Peercy's Committee intends to discuss and act on proposals that would allow APS Supt Winston Brooks to keep investigations of administrative corruption and incompetence, under his individual control. It will be he who decides what information will be shared with stakeholders, if any at all.

Brooks' plan is, when a complaint is filed against an APS administrator, the investigation and the investigative findings, will be kept under their control, to publish or secret at their whim.

There is no good and ethical reason to conduct in house investigations. The appearances of conflicts of interest and impropriety are as unacceptable as they are manifestly obvious. It is rather like putting the fox in charge of investigating missing chickens.

There is only one reason to oppose independent investigations of allegations of corruption and/or incompetence by administrators; a need to control, and spin, the truth.

Consider APS' self-investigation of criminal misconduct, link, in leadership of their publicly funded, private Police force. Long after statutes of limitation have expired, the findings are still secret.

When School Board President Paula Maes indicated that she would never agree to any audit that would individually identify corrupt and incompetent administrators, she meant as well; if an investigation does take place, and it does name names, APS will spend operational dollars (classroom dollars) to underwrite whatever legal weaselry is necessary to litigate their exception to the Inspection of Public Records Act.

There is an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS. They need more than anything else, to control the spin; including hiding the truth altogether.

There is only one reason to hide the truth, and that is to protect the corrupt and the incompetent from the consequences of their corruption and incompetence.

The people have no direct influence over the administration of their power and resources in the APS. Their only oversight is by means of the school board they elect. But if the administration and the school board are in cahoots, if they all want to hide the truth, we cannot rely upon them to put an end to Brooks' plan.


School Board enforcer Marty Esquivel and School Board President Paula Maes are foursquare behind Brooks efforts to cover up administrative incompetence and corruption.




photos Mark Bralley