According to APS policy, when APS students are suspended
from school, they are suspended from participation in extracurricular
activities as well. The intent of whoever wrote the policy could not be clearer.
The wrestler had been suspended; he should not have represented his school and
APS in the state wrestling tournament. All the stakeholders previously agreed,
at least tacitly, to abide by the rule.
Now a special case, special talent, special interest, and
special influence.
The outcome will not be determined according to Students
Standards of Conduct. It will be adjudicated according to different and
significantly lower standards of conduct; the law.
When the dust settles, APS policy will continue to read, students
are expected to hold themselves honestly accountable to higher standards of
conduct than the law, though they are manifestly not.
Accountability to higher standards of conduct than the law
requires doing more than the law requires, and less than the law allows.
Yet when push comes to shove, even self-proclaimed accountability to higher
standards of conduct than the law evaporates. In truth, it was never
there in the first place.
Students, according to APS School Board Policy, are expected
to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!. Whether anyone
actually believes the Pillars are appropriate standards for students, they are
the standards. Until they are rescinded or replaced, students are expected
to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!; a nationally recognized,
accepted, and respected code of ethical conduct.
Right, wrong, good, bad, or indifferent, the Pillars of
Character Counts! are APS' Student Standards of Conduct. They are by School
Board Policy and the (tacit) agreement of every single school board member and
senior administrator.
Worse than the fact that APS Student Standards of Conduct
are being completely ignored in the adjudication of this particular case, is
the fact that they are being completely ignored in general. The same
resolution that established the Pillars of Character Counts! as the APS student
standards, also established a requirement to build character education into the
not only the curriculum, but the very fabric of the APS. APS has no district
wide plan to develop character in students.
The leadership of the APS has made
a deliberate decision to abandon district wide efforts to develop character in
students. The why? is up for conjecture in the continuing absence of any
open and honest public discussion of APS student standards and accountability.
It could be argued, if the wrestler had received the
character education and development he so clearly needs, if bullying in general
triggered the consequences it should, we wouldn't be in this situation (nearly
so often).
Interest holders have no idea why the leadership of the APS
abandoned character education. They will never hear any justification for
the removal of the role modeling clause from the board's own standards of
conduct. It read;
In no case, shall the standards of conduct for an adultbe lower than the standards of conduct for students.
There is an ethics and accountability crisis in the APS.
There is no real accountability to ethical standards of
conduct.
If there is, why can't anyone point to those standards, and
then point to the due process for allegations that board members or senior
administrators have failed to meet them.
If we really want students to grow into adults who embrace
honest accountability to higher standards of conduct than the law, someone has
to show them what it looks like. Then, and only then, can those adults
expect students to hold themselves actually and honestly accountable to those
standards. Character is taught by personal example.
If the leadership of the APS isn’t willing to do that, then
the APS board needs to revisit student standards of conduct and lower them far
enough that board members and senior administrators are finally comfortable
being role models of actual accountability to them.
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