Monday, January 14, 2013

David Robbins opponent Paula Maes stands foursquare against honest accountability.

School Board President Paula Maes is on record in opposition to any audit that will individually identify and corrupt and incompetent senior administrators or board members.

Ask her, will you insist upon an independent review of APS executive and administrative standards and accountability, and that reports to the public record and not to the people they have exposed?

She will not answer; she will stonewall.
Any answer except yes, means no.

No answer, means no.

She once voted to remove from her own standards of conduct, her obligation as the senior most role model of the APS Student Standards of Conduct.  Before she struck it, there was a role modeling clause.  It read;
In no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult,
be lower than the standards of conduct for students.
It made them accountable, as role models, to higher standards of conduct than the law.  So they struck it.

With a stroke of her pen, she abdicated from her position as the senior most role model of the student standard of conduct; model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!, a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

Maes and the board voted unanimously to hold themselves accountable instead, to no real standards of conduct at all.  She has never been compelled to explain to students, why they are expected to hold themselves honestly accountable the Pillars of Character Counts!, and she is not.

School Board President Paula Maes was once the President of the Character Counts! Leadership Council.  Then the money United States Senator Pete Domenici had seen appropriated, tens of thousands of dollars, ran out.  Now you can't get her to even talk about Character Counts! much less hold herself accountable as its most senior role model in the entire APS.

Unfortunately, neither will David Robbins, Lorenzo Garcia, nor David Peercy.

Role modeling clause? We don't need no stinkin' role modeling clause.
There is not one of them who will restore the role modeling clause to their own standards of conduct.

There isn't one of them who will hold themselves honestly accountable
  • as role models of the student standards of conduct, the standards they establish and enforce upon students,
  • to any standard of conduct higher than the law; the lowest of standards. and
  • especially not accountable to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethics.
I met once with David Robbins, the last time he was running for the board.  I was looking to him to put a motion on the table to restore the role modeling clause.  I expressed to him my belief that there are two reasons and two reasons only, that a school board member or senior administrator would not hold them themselves honestly accountable to the Pillars of Character Counts!, at least for the few hours a day, that is their expectation of students.

Those two reasons are; the lack of courage and/or the lack of character.  There is no third good and ethical reason to not step up as a role model.

He agreed, without hesitation or reservation.

I have stood in front of every one of these people at public forums in school board meetings many times since.  I have asked them over and over and over again, to point to any other reason, other than their lack of courage and character, that prevents them from stepping up as honest to God role models of the APS Student Standards of Conduct.

Their response is to have their publicly funded private, police force arrest me rather that allow me to exercise my Constitutionally protected human right to ask them the question ever again.

I have asked the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, KOB, and KKOB, over and over and over again, would they ask them the question?
 Would they ask the leadership of the APS to explain why there are two standards of conduct in the APS and, why the higher standard by far, applies not to board members and senior administrators, but to students alone.

The Journal has been part of the cover up now through at least three school board elections and probably as many mill levy and bond issue elections.  As evidenced in their rag by the absence of even the most rudimentary investigation and report upon credible evidence of the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

Is there any reason at all, that candidates for school board seats should not be expected to declare candidly, forthrightly and honestly, their understanding and intentions with regard to executive and administrative standards of conduct, accountability and obligations as the senior most role models of higher standards of conduct than the law?

You would be surprised how hard it is to get to ask the question,
much less to receive a good faith response.



photos Mark Bralley

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