Esquivel lets students down

APS School Board President Marty Esquivel is the subject of a number of complaints file in federal court.  He would like very much, to escape the consequences of his several violations of my civil rights.

The truth is not on his side.

He doesn't want to tell the truth in response to Interrogatories,
he doesn't want to produce the truth in response to Requests for Production.

He looking for standards of conduct that allow him to not tell the truth, "the law" being one such.  The law allows him to hide legal advice the people paid for.  It allows him to delay and deny justice.

Esquivel can point to any standard of conduct he chooses and argue his accountability to it as opposed to some other.  It doesn't change the fact that he is accountable to one set of standards in particular, the standards of conduct he establishes and enforces upon students.

Those standards, a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct, are higher standards of conduct than the law.

Esquivel doesn't want to be held accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law, because even the least of them requires telling the truth, distinct from not lying.

The law allows Esquivel to hide the truth about the advice given to him by APS' lawyers regarding the propriety of his creating for me, a lifetime ban from board meetings  (or until I agree that I did something wrong, though I didn't, and then promise to not do it again, though I have every right and intention to, as soon as their publicly funded private police force stands down).

Student standards of conduct require candor, forthrightness and honestly in response to legitimate questions.  Student standards of conduct require doing more than the law requires and less than the law allows.

Esquivel's circumstances are unique in that when he became a school board member, he became a role model of student standards of conduct; whether or not he likes it, whether or not he will admit it.

The Pillars of Character Counts! link, are the standards of conduct for students.  In the APS Student Behavior Handbook, an extension of School Board Policy, they write,

Students are expected to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!

Accountability is fundamental to Character Counts!

One cannot model the Pillars of Character Counts! except by holding them self accountable to the Pillars of Character Counts! either through their own moral courage, or by a system free of undue influence, free of the appearance of conflicts of interest and impropriety and, powerful enough to hold them accountable, even against their will.

When students learn about the Pillar of Responsibility, they learn that responsibility means "being accountable for what we do and who we are".  They learn, "ethical people show responsibility by being accountable ...".  They learn that accountability means leading by example.

Within his service and capacity on the school board, Marty Esquivel is accountability to the same standards of conduct to which he hold students accountable.  Within his service on the school board, he can be expected to show students what it looks like when someone does more than the law requires and less than the law allows, link.

Character is taught by means of personal example, and by no other.

If we want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone has to show them what it looks like.

... just not APS School Board President Marty Esquivel.





photo Mark Bralley