David Peercy; still a coward, still a liar.

David Peercy, whether or not he or any other school board member will admit it, is a role model for APS students, of accountability to the standards of conduct that he and the board establish and enforce upon them.

Else is hypocrisy pure and simple.
Do as I say, not as I do.

As school board President, David Peercy is in fact, the senior most role model of accountability in the entire APS; all eyes are upon him, looking to him for leadership by example.

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

Character is taught by example;
character is taught only by personal example.

A little more than a decade ago, the APS School Board removed the “role modeling clause” from their own standards of conduct. The clause had read; in no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult be lower than the standards of conduct for students (as expressed in the APS Student Handbook)

The handbook requires yearly approval by the board and represents board policy on student standards of conduct. In the handbook, (written at a 14th grade reading level) their expectation of student’s conduct is clearly stated; students are expected to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!. The Pillars represent “higher standards of conduct” than the law.


Since the board openly abdicated their responsibilities and obligations as role models of honest to God accountability to the same standards of conduct that they establish and enforce upon students, there have been double standards of conduct in the APS. Students are accountable to higher, ethical standards while school board members and administration are accountable only the “the law”; the standards of conduct that higher standards are higher than; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.

Longtime APS Modrall
lawyer Art Melendres

They did it on the advice of their lawyers.

At the time, the board and their lawyers were refusing to “tell the truth” in state district court proceedings. Their obfuscation was of course, all “legal”. The board had been challenged in those proceedings, to live up to their obligations as role models of student standards of conduct; in especially those standards which required them to do more than the law requires and less than the law allows. They were being asked to tell as much truth as the law allowed rather than surrendering only as much as could be compelled in the face of cost is no object litigation and legal weaselry.

It is the obligation to answer legitimate questions “candidly, forthrightly and honestly” of which David Peercy and the entire leadership of the APS are so afraid.

David "we don't need no stinkin'
role modeling clause" Peercy.

There is no person in the entire APS who is more responsible for the fact that the board's role modeling clause will never be the subject of open and honest, two-way public discussion, than David Peercy, link.

Peercy and the rest of the "leadership" of the APS are at best unable and at worst unwilling to require from themselves, what they require from students; candor, forthrightness and honesty.

When David Peercy refuses to hold himself honest to God accountable to the same standards of conduct that he establishes and enforces upon students, it is not because, as he repeatedly claims, he is already accountable to even higher standards of conduct than student standards (the Pillars of Character Counts!; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct).  There is no such thing.

There are no standards of conduct higher than any standards of conduct that require candor, forthrightness and honesty in communications with stake and interest holders.

When asked to point to a single one of those supposed higher standards to which he claims accountability, he could not. He cannot.  There are none.

More importantly, when pressed on honest to God accountability and on the fact that their own Code of Ethics is utterly unenforceable, Peercy, clearly grasping for straws, suggested that complaints could be filed through APS’ whistleblower program, link. He suggests, in effect, any complaint regarding his or another board member’s failure to live up to the board’s Code, will see due process at the hands of a subordinate in the administration.

Peercy claims to be a scientist; he should not have to have the appearance of a conflict of interests explained to him. Nor should he need to have it explained to him, that appearances of conflicts of interests come at the expense of the appearance of due process.

When I reminded him that he, and they, could not even be held accountable under the law, he said he would not defend the excesses of former school board member Marty Esquivel, who squandered nearly a million operational dollars in an effort to escape honest to God personal accountability, and to buy for himself, admissions of “no guilt” over civil rights violations he committed while being videotaped, on David Peercy’s watch.

Peercy‘s response; “Marty Esquivel is his own man”.   Thereby absolving himself I suppose, of his failure to keep Esquivel's spending under control; within reason even.  Nearly a million dollars that should, could and would have been spent in classrooms except that they were wasted in court rooms, in Esquivel's from raid the district’s operational fund in order to underwrite his cost-is-no-object but nevertheless non-viable, defense of his ego.

Maestas has yet to pay
the piper for her failure
to role model honest to God
accountability to meaningful
standards of conduct

Finally, on the issue of the actual, honest to God accountability of school board members even to the law, much less their code of ethics, need I remind Peercy of the current status of school board member Analee Maestas?

David Peercy cannot summon the moral courage to hold himself honest to God accountable as a role model of student standards of conduct; he is a coward.

Alternatively, David Peercy claims honest accountability to higher standards of conduct; he is a liar.

His simple defense to both allegations could not be simpler. All he has to do is;

1. Point to any one of the standards to which he claims that he is accountable, that are in fact “higher” than student standards of conduct. And then he must;
2. Point the mechanism by which he and other school board members, senior administrators and their eloquence of lawyers can be held honest to God accountable to that standard, even against their will.

He cannot on either count.
None of them can.

That's why Peercy and the board will never tolerate an open and honest public discussion of ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling in the leadership of the APS.




photos Mark Bralley