And now to the future of the APS

However you look at it, the future Luis Valentino's superintendency is in the hands of the elected school board.  It is their exclusive obligation.

The only influence stake and interest holders have at this point is to threaten to elect them out in some distant election they likely won't vote in anyway.

There is the opportunity for stake and interest holders to make sure that something like this will never happen again, ever.

The circumstances that enabled, enable, and will continue to enable ongoing public corruption and incompetence; APS' dark side; the good ol' boy oligarchy, has not changed in a hundred years.

There is the opportunity to change those circumstances now.  If for no other reason than that the establishments media has finally picked a side.

Heretofore, school board members and senior administrators have been accountable only to "the law".  "The law" in the case of the leadership of the APS (and powerful people everywhere) means the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings further debilitated by limitless spending without (real) oversight on litigation and legal weaselry*.

*Legal weaselry is using weaknesses in the law to thwart justice; historically by endless delay followed by expensive settlements containing admissions of "no guilt" for even those the them who are guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.

There is the opportunity now to see them held in the future, honestly and actually accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service.

APS student standards of conduct, established by the school board and enforced by their supt. and his administration amount would be a good place to start.  The board, their supt., and their administration expect students to model and promote honest accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts! link.

Good, bad or indifferent; the question is moot.  The Pillars have been the student standards since 1994 and they will continue to be the student standards until the school board establishes some other much lower ones.  The board will need to find standards low enough to allow them to restore a role modeling clause to their own standards of conduct.

In no case shall the standards of conduct for a student
be lower than the standards for their adult role models.

They will or will not find themselves actually, honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence depending of the will of the people.

They will or will not find themselves actually, honestly accountable to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct, depending on the manifest* will of the people.
*Torch and pitchfork carrying people are going to have to show up somewhere and wrest back control over power and resources that belong to them.  The power and resources, the trust and the treasure that have been squandered belong to the people.

Control over the disposition of power and resource is given over to politicians and public servants by law.  The only safeguard the people have is the trustworthiness of people who are powerful enough to ignore the law if they want to.

Power and resources that belong fundamentally to the people are being spent against their interests and the only way to stop it is to show up some place some time and do some thing to change the standards and accountability the will apply to them from this day on.

People who wait for perfect circumstances to act, never act.  They have found the perfect excuse.  There will never be a perfect time.

There may never be a better time.

Edmund Burke argued;

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil 
is that good men do nothing.

I'm not saying those who live and work in APS' dark side are "evil".

But they are the people about whom Burke wrote his warning.
And you are who he was warning.

Stand up and be counted.

There is no equivalent gesture.

Sacrifice is the currency of commitment.
Are you committed or are you not?

Your silence gives consent.