Marty Esquivel role model. Not.

The very instant that APS School Board President Marty Esquivel became the school board president, he donned mantelet of senior most role model of student standards of conduct.

You wouldn't know it.  He thinks his silent abdication trumps his moral obligations.

He is yet to explain the math to interest holders.

One doesn't decide whether they are a role model.  Coaches don't get to decide whether they are role models.  The only deciding they get to do is, whether to be role models of accountability to the highest standards of conduct or something lower.

Teachers don't get to decide whether they are role models for students.

And school board presidents don't get to decide whether they are role models for thousands of employees and tens of thousands of students.

Esquivel's abdication, his denial, whether he doesn't want and won't accept the duties and responsibilities of his position as a role model is immaterial.  He is the senior most role model of the student standards of conduct.

The student standards of conduct are a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct. The Student Behavior Handbook specifically and explicitly expects students to “model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!” link.

Fundamental to the concept of ethical standards of conduct, is honest accountability to them.  You really can't have the one without the other.  There is not a whit of difference between the highest standards of conduct and the lowest, if there is not actual honest accountability.

One cannot claim to be “(role) modeling the Pillars of  Character Counts!” except by holding oneself honestly accountable to them.  Accountability is central to role modeling. It is the accountability which needs the very most, to be role modeled.

It is the foundation of role modeling.

Otherwise, all we have is a centuries old fable about a kid a hatchet and a cherry tree, to point to when we need an example of honest accountability to higher standards of conduct than the law.

There is a need for role models to conspicuously manifest willingness to do more than the law requires, and less than the law allows. 

Mr. Esquivel has made it pretty clear that he has no intention to step up as a role model of accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts1, the same standards of conduct he enforces upon nearly 90,000 of this community’s sons and daughters.

He has made it pretty clear that he has no intention to allow me to stand up at a public forum and ask him ever again, if he will point to the time, the day, and the place,

1. where he will stand up as a role model of accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts!, or
2. where he will stand up in front of students and explain to them, in words they can understand, why, they are expected to hold themselves honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law, and he is not.

The establishment media is well aware of dual standards of conduct in the APS; the egregious hypocrisy of ethical standards of conduct for students and the lowest standards of conduct for senior administrators and board members.

They choose to not investigate and report upon it.





photo Mark Bralley