Stand with APS students on Character Counts! They need you

Character Counts! trainers used to give kids t-shirts after completing their Character Counts! training.

On its front and back it read;

Stand up for what you believed in;
even if you are standing alone.

Students in search of good character cannot be left to search alone.

What children and students in the APS need is;

• adults behind them, encouraging their effort,

• adults beside them, sharing the load, and

• adults in front of them, leading by personal example.

What students have is;

• nothing.  

APS cannot point to the expenditure of one single dime, literally not one dime, on any district wide effort to develop students' good character.

Not that there are not good role models among the adults who work in classrooms and schools.

It is that;
there is not one single role model of honest accountability
to the Pillars of Character Counts! in the entire senior leadership of the APS.

There is not one school board member;
there is not one senior administrator,
who will stand up and swear;

I will hold myself honestly and actually accountable
to the same standards of conduct
 (the Pillars of Character Counts!, link) 
that I have established and enforce upon students.

When the question is;

will you be held honestly and actually accountable
as a role model of student standards of conduct?

any answer except yes, means no.

The leadership of the APS cannot point to any due process under which they are accountable, actually, honestly accountable to student standards of conduct; in this case, a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

Show up at the school board meeting tomorrow.

No spray paint, no screaming
no yelling, no violence.

Just "the people" showing up
and wondering together aloud
and out loud;

Why are APS students
expected to model and
promote actual, honest
accountability to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected
code of ethical conduct, while school board members and
senior administrators are not?

Let's show the board what it looks like when stake and interest holders go to a public meeting to petition their government for redress of their grievance;

90,000 APS students are being systematically denied
any opportunity to learn about higher standards of conduct
than the law.  They are being systematically denied
other higher standards which they might then choose to embrace as adults.

The Journal, KRQE, KOAT and KOB TV are yet to investigate and report upon credible evidence, manifest evidence, and allegations of an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.
If the establishment press won't help, it will have to be done without them.

If you know someone who might be upset
at the abdication en masse of the entire senior-most
role models in the APS, tell them about the meeting.

Wednesday (before 5 pm if you want to sign up to speak)
6400 Uptown Blvd.

Brad Winter safely retired; spending still secret

Come see what your tax dollars have bought
instead of new roofs on dilapidated classrooms, link.

If the standards we expect children to embrace include
character and courage and honor; someone is going to
have to show them what they look like.

If we expect students to hold themselves
honestly accountable to meaningful standards of
conduct and competence, someone is going to have
to show them what that looks like. 
Don't worry that your children never listen to you,
worry that they are always watching you. unk
the trouble is, when people say

"somebody should do something"

they always mean

someone else should do something.

The leadership of the APS doesn't want to step up as role models of honest accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts!.

They role model instead; accountability to the law, the standards that all higher standards are higher than.  And only then after burning through an unlimited budget to buy all the legal weaselry they can buy, in an effort to litigate exception for themselves, from even the law.

If the leadership won't lead;
it's time for new leadership.



photos Mark Bralley