Nearly six years ago to the day, a student on a field trip to the BioPark, did considerable damage to a very expensive piece of acrylic in the aquarium.
At the time I wrote a post, link, blaming the incident in no small part, on then APS Supt Elizabeth Everitt.
According to school board policy, policy that has never been rescinded,
she had a responsibility to offer students character education as part
of their curriculum. She had, I argued, an unmet obligation to offer students some direction in the development of their character, and therefore shared responsibility.
Had the student in question gone through meaningful character education, there is a possibility he might not have vandalized the aquarium. In my experience, character education did not turn many "bad" kids into "good" kids. Nor did it turn great kids into greater kids. It did push the kids in the middle, in right direction. It did have an overall positive effect, though really positive results were limited to those schools where the administration actually walked the talk.
A few years later, when a sagger was sent off to prison, again, I blamed the leadership of the APS, link. And now, when a high school drill team runs amok, link, again, I blame the leadership of the APS.
I can hear the chorus; what about the students? what about the parents? what about every other negative influence that bombard children all day long? Realistically, I can't fix any of those; neither can you.
We can fix the fact that, the entire leadership of the APS has abdicated from their obligations and responsibilities as role models of the standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students. We can hold them accountable for their willful decision to abdicate from their obligations as role models of honest accountability to higher standards of conduct than the law, and to abandon any district wide efforts to help children embrace higher standards themselves and develop the moral courage to hold them themselves honestly accountable to them.
Real leadership begins at the top and by personal example. If we really want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone has to show them what it looks like; beginning with the school board and senior administration.
Their accountability begins with compelling them to defend their indefensible decision to abandon character education and their abdication from role models for students.
Somehow, they must be made to defend, in public and on the record, their decision to remove from their own code of conduct, their role modeling clause;
In no case shall the standards of conduct for an adultSomehow, they must be compelled to defend their deliberate decision to strike language that held them accountable to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethics, link, the Pillars of Character Counts! Somehow, they must be compelled to explain why students are expected to model accountability to higher standards of conduct than their adult role models.
be lower than the standards of conduct for students.
Unfortunately, making them do the right thing is harder than you might imagine.
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| School Board enforcer Esquivel |
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| Journal Managing Editor Walz |
They won't tell you, why they won't; or about all their interpersonal connections and affiliations with board members and senior administrators.
They also have the luxury of not having to defend their indefensible positions.
The only thing they can't stop is the people.
The board can't arrest everybody;
the Journal can't ignore everybody.
Show up at a public forum, ask them
why students are expected to model honest accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts!, at risk of their good character, and
why the "leadership" of the APS is not.
photos Mark Bralley
Walz ched macquigg
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