Brooks backed down on principal transfer

APS Supt Winston Brooks stirred up a hornet's nest recently; he transferred the beloved and respected community member and principal of 14 years, out of Mission Avenue Elementary School.

The issue is as much how Brooks handled the transfer, as it is the transfer itself.

Either it never occurred to Brooks that he should involve the community in the decision to replace their principal, or it did occur to him, and he decided against it. It amounts to incompetence or corruption.

It is small wonder that Brooks will not hold himself accountable as a role model of student standards of conduct, which do respect stakeholder rights in decision making.

Brooks' manifest disrespect for community members and their right to participate meaningfully in decision making affecting their interests is what energized them. They have been showing up at public forums for months, and protesting the move.

They were moderately successful; a new principal will be selected, and the community will participate in the selection.

Full success was denied them, when Brooks let them know
he's still boss; the principal they really want, will not be on the list from which they will select the new one.

Brooks has the "right" to run his little Chinese fire drills with principals; but that doesn't make it "right" that he does. Just because he has the "right" to deny stakeholder rights in decision making, doesn't make it "right" that he does.

The Journal reports, link, that the community members who pushed back were "publicly chided" by Brooks and the Board. The circumstances of the chiding are what passes for two-way communication with the leadership of the APS; citizens ask questions in the forum that board members won't answer, and then Brooks and the board take pot shots from the dais when the targets have no opportunity to respond without being declared unruly, and possibly removed from the meeting by APS publicly funded, private police force, link.

You can watch if you wish, link and click on "video" for the July 18th board meeting. Watch the meeting; the public forum and responses from Brooks and the Board.

The Journal reports that Board Members Esquivel and Robbins went off on community members, at one point the meeting being stopped until order was restored.

It was John Kennedy who pointed out;

those who make peaceful revolution impossible,
make violent revolution inevitable."

By extension, those board members and superintendents who make it impossible for interest holders to involve themselves "peacefully" in decision making that affects their interests, will involve themselves "un-peacefully".

It is the School Board and the Superintendent who establish and enforce the rules for community involvement in the APS. It is they, who force the form of their opposition.

If they had the character and the courage to provide a venue for "harder conversations" to take place, they wouldn't have to take place at public forums between the podium and the dais.

The Journal is yet to investigate and report upon the efforts of the Citizens Advisory Council on Communication to establish just such a venue, and the Board's rebuff by denial of due process for their lawful and legitimate petition.




photo Mark Bralley