Will transparency, standards and accountability on the table in school board election?

The lack of transparent accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence for APS school board members and administrators is a significant problem.  It can be rectified by the creation and enforcement of a new school board policy, one that raises standards and provides due process for legitimate complaints of administrative or executive incompetency or corruption.

That new policy will not be created nor enforced by the same board members who have never created the policy nor enforced before; the same board members who refuse to explain, defend, or even acknowledge having removed the Role Modeling Clause from their own standards of conduct, the one that read;

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

The sitting school board will never create honest accountability to any standard of conduct than the law. Their record is one of avoiding accountability even to the law. They are manifestly comfortable with the current situation; students are expected to model and promote a nationally recognized, accepted, and respected code of ethical conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!, and administrators and board members are expected and allowed to model and promote anything the law allows; the law being the lowest standards of conduct acceptable among civilized human beings.

With the election of four new members in February, a new majority can be created. If they are committed to transparent accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, if they are willing to hold themselves and their subordinates honestly accountable to standards requiring more than the law requires and less than the law allows, APS will follow an entirely different path and better opportunity for nearly 90,000 of this community’s sons and daughters.

Standards, accountability and transparency are the key words in the board election, and in the elections over $368M in mill levies and bond issues. The incumbents can’t afford to talk about them, the challengers cannot afford not to, and neither can voters.

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