APS School Board in Hiding

The Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education is making monumental decisions in secret.

Part and parcel in the hiring of the next superintendent, are two issues that the board does not want discuss in public;

1. What will be the new standards of conduct for students? and
2. Will they have adult role models of (honest accountability to) those standards?

That the board is trying to make these decisions in secret from stake and interest holders begs at least one question; why? Why are they in hiding?

The obvious answer is; they do not want to be held accountable for the decisions they have made.

They fully intend to;

1. Lower student standards of conduct*, and
2. Provide for students, no adult role models of actual accountability even to the significantly lower standards of conduct.

*Currently, APS students are expected to “model and promote (honest accountability to)” a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct. Replacement standards remain unspecified.

There will be no executive or administrative role models. The board’s position is manifest in their removal from their own standards of conduct, a role modeling clause which had read;

In no case shall the standards of conduct for adults
be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

Within the last week, they decided to not include “role model” in their list of “desirable characteristics” of the next superintendent.

Were the character and courage of the board not placed in doubt by these decisions, that doubt is laid to rest by their efforts to keep the whole thing secret.

Until they are formally lowered, student standards of conduct require candor, forthrightness and honesty in response to legitimate questions. It is this requirement in particular that the leadership of the APS wants to abjure.

The courage of the board, collectively and individually, is brought into question by their efforts to make these decisions in secret.

Kent Walz and the Journal’s relentless refusal to investigate and report upon the ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS is not borne of cowardice per se, but of corruption.

Walz and the Journal (and the NM Broadcasters Assoc affiliates KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV are integral in the cover up of corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS.

Were they not, they would report that APS school board members and senior administrators are in fact, honest to God accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service.

Qui tacet consentire videtur,
ubi loqui debuit ac potuit

He who is silent, when he ought to have spoken
and was able to, is taken to agree — Latin proverb