APS proves it has "ethics"; any real "accountability" to them - not so much

The leadership of the APS has for some time, fought being pinned down on their ethics, standards and accountability.  I have reported over and over, that by their own frank admission, their own Code of Ethics is utterly unenforceable.

Finally, in response to numerous public records requests; APS and their lawyers have finally decided to argue that school board members are in fact, accountable to two codes of ethical conduct;

1. the one they wrote for themselves; APS School Board Code of Ethics, link, and
2. the one the NM School Boards Association wrote for themselves, link.

The leadership of the APS claims actual, honest to God accountability to higher standards of conduct; not one, but two Codes of Ethics.

According to board, anyone who wants to hold them accountable to their own code of ethics, has at least one remedy; recall.

In order to recall a school board member, one would have to collect valid signatures from one-third as many people as who voted in the last school board election.

If you have never tried to collect petition signatures; you have no idea how difficult it would be to gather enough signatures to provoke a recall election.  Recall is not a viable process for holding school board members accountable to their own code of ethical conduct.  For any practical intent or purpose, it is worthless.  It doesn't count.

As for the NM School Boards Association Code of Ethics;

I have on four occasions now, sent an email to the NM School Boards Association requesting information on whatever process(es) there are available to complainants regarding violations of their Code of Ethics.

The NM School Boards Association has yet to respond.

So, no, the NM SBA Code of Ethics is not enforceable.

Ergo, the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education is not,
by any reasonable measure, accountable to any higher standards
of conduct than the law; the lowest standards of conduct
acceptable to civilized human beings.

When they finally produce the rest of the public records of their accountability, it will become obvious that they are not actually, honest to God accountable even to the law.  By means of limitless funding for cost-is-no-object litigation and legal weaselry, school board members and senior administrators routinely escape accountability even for criminal misconduct.

Witness their cover up of state and felony criminal misconduct, link, involving the senior most leadership of the APS and of their publicly funded private police force.  There is no record that demonstrates that any one of them was ever held accountable to the law.

APS squandering public trust and treasure

The Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education is using the operational fund to pay lawyers to find ways to avoid producing public records that enjoy no real exception from the NM Inspection of Public Records Act.

The operational fund is filled with tax dollars that could, should and would be spent actually educating children were they not being spent instead finding ways to circumvent actual, honest to God accountability to the law.

The records they are hiding are of felony public corruption and incompetence. To wit, a cover up of state and federal felony criminal misconduct involving the leadership of the APS and of APS’ publicly funded private police force (APS Top Cop Finds Himself on Hot Seat, link).

The board and their assigns are now prepared to engage in cost-is-no-object litigation and no-holds-barred legal weaselry to keep the records from public knowledge. Why?  What could possibly justify taking operational funds away from teachers to pay lawyers to hide the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the ethically redacted truth?

All they have to do, to prove these allegations nonsense, is to produce the public record that they ever did anything but cover up criminal misconduct.

• Where is the record of referral to any other agency of law enforcement; APD, BCSO, NMSP, FBI?
• Where is the record of referral to the Bernalillo County District Attorney?

The records they won’t produce are their records of publicly funding a cover up of their own criminal misconduct.

The records they can’t produce are their records of any effort at all to hold APS senior administrators criminally accountable to the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.

Using public funds to pay lawyers to hide
public records from public knowledge is wrong; right?

Cover up at Jimmy Carter Middle School

The leadership of the APS has decided to cover up whatever it is that happened at Jimmy Carter Middle School, link.

... the tip of the iceberg.
If ever that idiom plays, it plays now.

APS routinely hides public records from stake and interest holders. Anyone who doesn’t like it can sue them.

The APS school board will respond to the lawsuit with a cost-is-no-object legal defense. They will keep the records secret as long as the law will allow.

School board members are the ultimate stewards of public trust and treasure invested in the Albuquerque Public Schools.

When the board meets to authorize spending the "operational fund" on lawyers bent on keeping the inconvenient truth secret, the board meets in secret. "Executive sessions" are held behind closed doors. They do not make any recording of the meeting and won't defend that decision. There is no oversight in the room; subordinate oversight is not oversight; it is an oxymoron.

They spend without limit.

They have spent millions of otherwise classroom bound dollars on litigation and legal weaselry in order to buy admissions of "no guilt" in inordinately expensive settlements of lawsuits just like the one the Journal should be instigating against the board over a truth telling of what happened at Jimmy Carter Middle School; the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the ethically redacted truth.

They get away with it because Kent Walz and the Journal refuse to investigate and report upon an ongoing ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS; if only to report that there isn't one.

If the leadership of the APS is really, honest to God accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service, if there really are higher standards and, if there really are due processes by which they can be held accountable to them;

Why is the leadership of the APS keeping their ethics, standards and accountability secret?

Why is Journal helping them?

APS School Board looking forward to a lawsuit

The leadership of the APS has been asked to produce certain public records.  They will not.

The board and their superintendent don't want to produce the records because they represent incontrovertible evidence of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.  Public records of their ethics and standards and their actual, honest to God accountability to them will reveal the truth;

1. there are in fact, no "higher standards" of conduct for superintendents and school board members, and
2. there aren't any due processes to hold them accountable to them even if there were.

Instead of producing the records according to the law; the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act, the board and their lawyers will exploit loopholes and technicalities in the law in order to keep the records secret.  That requires money.  They have the money; unlimited access to the Operational Fund which they allocate in meetings in secret and of which they make no recording. They will funnel to their lawyers, however much money they can spend in what are now routinely cost-is-no-object efforts to except themselves from accountability even to the law.

The first ethic in the APS School Board's own utterly unenforceable Code of Ethics reads;

1.   Make the education and well-being of students the basis for all decision making

Their decision to spend the operational fund (dollars that should, could and would be spent in classrooms) on efforts to hide an inconvenient truth is not made in the interests of the education and well-being of students.

The school board and their lawyers are squandering the public trust and treasure in their own personal interests.

They are spending tax dollars on a cover up of the ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

Else;

• they would point directly to whatever ethics and standards that bind them, and

• they would point directly to the process(es) by which they can be held accountable to them.

If they have higher standards of conduct (than the law, the lowest standards of conduct acceptable among civilized human beings) and if they are actually, honestly accountable to them, they would say so.  They would point to them proudly.

And, it would be newsworthy.
The Journal would report upon it.

To fear to face an issue is to believe that the worst is true Ayn Rand

The fact that;

the Journal steadfastly refuses to investigate and report upon administrative and executive ethics, standards and accountability, even to report that the leadership of the APS is honestly accountable to ethics and standards that are high enough to protect the public interests in the public schools,

is submitted as proof that the worst is true.

APS School Board; if not cowardice, if not corruption, then what is it, exactly?

A couple of decades ago, the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education passed a unanimous resolution adopting "higher standards" of conduct for students and for their adult role models.

Since, they have changed their collective mind;

• students are still expected to "model and promote" honest accountability to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.  
while
• school board members and senior administrators are now expected only to "... maintain the highest standards of conduct and act in a mature and responsible manner at all times."

Peercy has kept the
resolution off the table
for more than a decade;
cowardice, corruption, or
what, exactly?

Though School Board President David Peercy claims accountability to the "highest standards" of conduct, he is not; not by a long shot.

Never mind that he cannot point to any honest to God due processes by which he can be held accountable to any higher standards of conduct; he cannot even point with any specificity to these supposed "highest standards" themselves.  Where are they codified, where are they even written down?

Peercy is demonstrably unaccountable even to the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.  Honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence are no match for APS' eloquence of lawyers, law firms, litigation and legal weaselry underwritten by their unlimited access to the operational fund; millions of dollars a year.

The Operational Fund is money that should, could and would be spent in classrooms were they not being squandered in courtrooms securing admissions of no guilt in exorbitantly expense legal settlements.

There are those who believe that trying to enforce a decades old school board resolution, is fool's errand.  Perhaps, perhaps not. But that's not the point.

The point is that board members will not reconsider their motion.  They will not put it on the table for open and honest public discussion.  Though their clear "ethical" obligation is to reconsider their resolution; either reaffirm, amend or rescind it; in public and on the record, that is clearly not their intention.

Instead, the school board will pretend it doesn't exist.
David Peercy has ordered them to pretend it doesn't exist.


No debt is too old for an honest man to pay. unk

A question is begged; for how long then, is  the school board's promise "good"? for a month? a year? ten years? Or do this school board's promises expire the moment they are made?

If the reason to not revisit the resolution does not flow from their cowardice; they are afraid to accept the consequences that a re-visitation would provoke; if the reason does not flow from their corruption; they don't want to be held honestly accountable as the senior most role models of the same standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students; then from where does their resistance flow?

The question isn't rhetorical.

Cowardice, corruption or what, exactly?




photo Mark Bralley

Pat Davis still stonewalling

Would be United States Congressman Pat Davis is on record, link, describing the Albuquerque Public Schools Role Model Policy as  "vague, coded language".

The policy read; (before the board voted unanimously to strike it from their own code of conduct)

In no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult

be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

At the time, I took the time to go to a city council meeting to challenge Davis to point to the vague and coded language and to vindicate his slander.

Instead, Davis sat stone-faced and mum; hiding behind a contrived inability of councilors to respond during a public forum, to legitimate questions about the public interests in city government.

Davis has not responded still.
More than a year later, he still
cannot justify his slander.

Still, he will not point to vagary.

Still he will not point the "coded"
language.

He won't because he can't.

He won't because he cannot summon the courage and the character he will would need to admit that the requirements of adult role models in the APS are neither vague nor coded.  That, but a fraction of the courage and character he would need to actually be a role model of the standards of conduct expected from the nearly 90,000 of this community's sons and daughters in APS schools, by holding himself honestly accountable to those same higher standards.

And still, he thinks he's qualified for congress.
Considering some of those who sit there now,
perhaps he's not too far off.




photo Mark Bralley


cc Pat Davis upon posting; 
he can respond anytime he wants to.

"To fear to face an issue is to believe the worst is true"

If Ayn Rand is right, the worst is true about the leadership of the APS; they are not actually accountable to any "higher standards"* of conduct at all.

*It turns out, if you search for consensus on the meaning of "higher standards" of conduct, you will find none.  The meaning of higher standards depends on who is claiming to have them.

It is my belief that "higher standards" means higher standards than the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable among civilized human beings.  In this context, higher standards of conduct means standards of conduct that require candid, forthright and honest answers to legitimate questions about the public interests in the public schools.

The accountability of the leadership of the APS, even to the law, is debatable.

In meetings they hold in secret and of which no recording is made; they spend the operational fund without limit, on litigation and legal weaselry whose purpose is not to serve students or the public interests, but to ensure that corrupt and incompetent senior administrators and school board members can "admit no guilt" in inordinately expensive settlement agreements.

The Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education is afraid to face the issue of administrative and executive ethics, standards and accountability because they are inadequate and unenforceable.

Their defense against that allegation is simple.  All they have to do is to identify the clear and unequivocal ethics and standards to which they claim accountability and then prove they are accountable by identifying the due process to which they are subject.

For example; the board could point to their own code of ethics, link, which would lead one to believe that they can be held accountable to ethical standards of conduct.  Except that the truth is, by their own free admission, their code of ethical conduct is utterly unenforceable.

Were their code enforceable, the very first ethic in their code;

Make the education and well-being of students the basis for all decision making, 

would prevent them from spending the operational fund, money that could, should and would be spent in classrooms, on cost-is-no-object legal defenses instead.

If the board and senior administrators actually had higher standards of conduct, and if they were actually accountable to those standards by due process; beyond their undue influence and powerful enough to hold them accountable even against their will, they would point to them.

Why wouldn't they?

Instead, they stonewall; the only defense of an indefensible position.

They fear to face the issue because the worst is true;
the leadership of the Albuquerque Public Schools
is unaccountable to any higher standards of conduct at all,
and they are arguably unaccountable
even to the law.

cc upon posting, with an invitation to respond, 
refute or rebut by means of leaving a comment;
individual board members and the superintendent.

If a Custodian of Public Records will not produce records, and if ...

... a Communications Specialist will not answer legitimate questions about the public interests in the public schools, candidly, forthrightly, honestly and in a timely manner, is it fair to hold her responsible and therefore accountable for her failure to produce public records according to the NM Inspection of Public Records Act and, for her failure to communicate the truth to stake and interest holders?

If the public trust and treasure is about to be squandered on litigation and legal weaselry in an effort to cover up an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, is it fair to blame the records custodian/communications specialist?

If an old cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving APS senior administrators who were never held to account, is being covered up still, is it fair to blame the records custodian and communications specialist?

Probably not.

aps image

It would it be more just to
hold accountable, her boss;
Todd Torgerson
Interim Chief of Human Resources
and Legal Services

aps image

It would it be more just still,
to hold accountable, his boss;
Raquel Reedy, Superintendent
of the Albuquerque Public Schools.









Most just, would be to hold accountable the APS Board of Education, who meet in secret, in meetings of which no recording is made, to decide how many hundreds and hundreds of thousand dollars they will spend on the litigation and legal weaselry that they'll need to continue their cover up their lack of ethics, standards and accountability and their state and federal felony criminal misconduct.

If only the Journal weren't in cahoots.

APS School Board must reconsider 24 year old resolution

no debt is to old for an honest man to pay. unk

Is a sitting school board bound by a previous board's resolution? 
If not, then for how long is their word good? 
Is it even good on the night they make their resolution;
is it any good at all? 

If we really want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone is going to have to show them what those look like.

• 24 years and 19 days ago, the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education promised to show students what character and courage and honor look like.  They adopted high standards of conduct for students and then promised them adult role models worthy of emulation.
• And then, they reneged on their promise.
• And now, they refuse to acknowledge that they reneging on their promise.

There are double standards of conduct in the APS.

According to the board’s Student Handbook;

Students are expected, to model and promote honest accountability to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

Board members and senior administrators, by means of their cost-is-no-object litigation and legal weaselry, are arguably unaccountable even to the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.

The double standards and egregious hypocrisy can be resolved one of two ways;

1. The board can lower student standards of conduct to the point where board members are finally are willing to be held actually accountable as role models of accountability to the same standards of conduct that they establish and enforce upon students. Or,

2. The board can raise their own standards of conduct to the level of the standards they establish and enforce upon students. The board can restore the role modeling clause to their own standards of conduct; the one that used to read;

in no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

What the board can not do, is to continue to ignore the petition.

Continuing to stonewall the petition is dishonest.

Stonewalling is among the most cowardly forms of dishonesty. It is unworthy of the senior-most role models for nearly 80,000 of this community’s sons and daughters in public schools.

The board's own Dr. No;
no public discussion of ethics
standards, accountability and role
modeling.  Not now, not ever.

The board must over come the more than decade long obstruction of School Board President David Peercy.  He has kept open and honest public discussion of ethics, standards and accountability off the table of his Policy Committee for more than a decade.  He has refused to discuss, in public and on the record, whether the role modeling clause should be restored to the board's own standards of conduct.

Four other board members must then, summon the character and courage to place the 1994 Character Counts! Resolution on the table in an open public meeting; there to reaffirm, amend or rescind it, in public and on the record.

It is time; it is well past time for the board to declare candidly, forthrightly and honestly, what it is that the board intends to do about the double standards of conduct in the Albuquerque Public Schools and their abject failure as role models of student standards of conduct.



photo Mark Bralley

APS School Board Code of Ethics is utterly unenforceable

By their own frank admission:
the APS School Board’s own code of ethics,
is utterly unenforceable.

The truth is; they're telling the truth.

The stink of it is; they won't tell you why.

Why is their Code of Ethics utterly unenforceable?
Why don't they have to explain why it isn't enforceable?

The simple proof; ask for any public record revealing due process of any kind, by which they can be held honestly accountable to their Code of Ethics.

This is no revelation to School Board members. 
They know or remaine willfully ignorant.

There will be no open and
honest public discussion of
ethics, standards and account-
ability while Peercy remains
in charge.

School Board President David Peercy has kept open and honest public discussion off the table at the Policy Committee he chairs for more than a decade.

He tabled the motion to reestablish the role modeling clause to the board's standards of conduct.  Before it was removed unanimously, it read;

in no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

Peercy won't talk about ethics, standards and accountability because he can't really prove there are any; any standards or ethics that are enforceable by any due processes over which they and their lawyers cannot exert undue influence and, that are powerful enough to hold he and them accountable, even against their will.

Peercy and the board refuse to explain, in words at least most students can understand,

• why are students are expected to model and promote honest accountability to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct, and 
• their senior most executive and administrative role models are not?

They are demonstrably unaccountable even to the law;
the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.

The reason they are not, is because public uproar over the abdication of the senior most role models in the entire APS, has yet to reach their ears.

There is a public forum.
You have to get there before 5pm; before most people get off work, or they won't let you sign up.

photo Mark Bralley

Journal exposes Graduation Rate Gate in an editorial.

In an editorial this morning, the editors exposed the scam that APS and other school districts have been using to appear to be doing a better job than they are, of educating children in public schools.

Their opinion isn't available, strangely, in any format that allows a link to be published.

At any rate, APS has been touting rising graduation rates as proof that they are doing a better job.  The problem is, there are ways to raise graduation rates without having to do a better job of teaching.  APS raised their graduation rates on at least two occasions by simply giving students 5 years instead of 4 to graduate on time and, they dropped from the cohort, any 9th grader who had already failed the 9th grade.

The reason APS and others talk about graduation rates is because they have to talk about something, and every other measure of the efficacy of public education points toward failure.  What does it say that a significant number of diplomas are given to seniors who can't read? or do math?

One solution is a graduation test, or battery of tests, whatever is fair and accurate.  Something akin to SAT or ACT exams.

If one school district's seniors pass the test at a rate of 80% and another district's seniors pass at only 60%, the one is doing demonstrably better than the other; numbers that mean something.

It's a pity that the Journal exposed the scam in an editorial and not in an investigation and report on other real measures of the education that is or is not taking place.

The leadership of the APS has a record of hiding the truth.

They have a record of covering up state and federal felony criminal misconduct involving their senior leadership and the leadership of their publicly funded private police force.

The evidence that proves that allegation comes in the form of public records. The records are subject to the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act.

The records are;

1. The records of any investigation into the conduct of any member of the leadership of the APS and that exposed probable cause to believe that there was either state or federal felony misconduct. In particular, any investigation into the corruption and incompetence reported in the Journal, Feb 1, 2007; APS Top Cop Finds Himself on Hot Seat. In particular, any investigation undertaken by the Albuquerque Public Schools police force, any contract private investigator such as but not limited to Robert Caswell Investigations, or any investigator working for their lawyers, under however many layers they are buried.
2. Any record of APS turning over the evidence, information and testimony from those investigations to any recognized agency of law enforcement such as but not limited to, the Bernalillo County District Attorney, the Albuquerque Police Department, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, the New Mexico State Police, or the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In response to the request, APS will either;

1. Produce public records in accordance with the law, of cover ups of state and federal felony misconduct; or
2. They will fight tooth and nail for every record. They will litigate forever.

At their disposal; unlimited access to the operational fund; money that could be, should be and would be spent in classrooms were it not being spent instead in courtrooms, and on whatever litigation and legal weaselry is necessary to keep the truth secret from stake and interest holders until the money runs out. 

There is only one reason to hide the truth and that is
to avoid the consequences of the truth being known.

If the record of the leadership of the APS was one of seeing that the criminals in their midst were held accountable for their crimes, they wouldn’t be hiding it; they wouldn’t need to.

... no one more culpable than is David Peercy

Twenty five years ago, the APS School Board passed a resolution that created new standards of conduct for students; higher standards.  They unanimously establish the Pillars of Character Counts!; a nationally accepted recognized and respected code of ethical conduct, as the standards of conduct to which students were to hold themselves accountable; honestly, actually accountable.

The resolution included the promise of adult role models who would show students what holding oneself accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law.

They had language in the own code of conduct that read;

In no case, shall the standards of conduct for an adult
be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

The board has since voted unanimously, to remove that clause and that expectation from their standards of conduct.  Thought they have neither amended nor rescinded resolution, they are ignoring virtually every promise they made in the resolution.

The board has be asked to place the 1994 Character Counts! Resolution on the table in a public meeting and then either reaffirm, amend or rescind it.

Apparently they will not.

There will be no open and honest
public discussion of ethics,
standards and accountability
while Peercy is in charge.

And there in no one more culpable for their relentless refusal to be candid, forthright and honest with stake and interest holders about ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS than APS School Board President David Peercy.

photo Mark Bralley

The "hardest" target in the entire APS school system

The APS is full of soft targets; places where there are a lot of students who are vulnerable to attack from outside their schools.

The hardest target in the entire APS, in terms of security cameras per square foot, armed guards and bullet proof Kevlar armored furniture to hide behind, hands down, is the administrative complex at 6400 Upyours Blvd.*

*Willing to bow as always, to controverting evidence.

Begging at least one question;

if the people whose money was spent renovating spaces for senior administrators and school board members,
would have rather it had been spent instead on protecting the nearly 90,000 of this community's sons and daughters who attend APS schools?

photo Mark Bralley

Schiff supporters are this discussion's flat earthers

Because our only real defense against public corruption and incompetence is "trust", it behooves us to consider who we will trust.  If the people are to pick a side in this discussion, among the first things they must do is decide who to trust; whose word to take.

There are dueling champions in discussion of possible violations of the FISA act; Rep Adam Schiff and Rep Trey Gowdy. 

I submit as an indication of Trey Gowdy's credibility, an interview he did with Marsha MacCallum on fox, link.  I submit as an indication of Adam Schiff's credibility, an interview he did on CBS, link. 

Trey Gowdy's credibility resonates with me.
Adam Schiff deliberately misled stake and interest holders about the content of and the effect of the release of the memo.

I cannot imagine a productive discussion with anyone who thinks or believes that Adam Schiff is as, or more credible than Trey Gowdy, any more than I can imagine a productive discussion of plate tectonics with somebody who still believes the earth is flat.

APS denied Don Moya's IPRA request and violated the law

Insofar as justice delayed is justice denied,  APS lawyers denied Don Moya's request for public records of the money APS paid lawyers to obstruct his efforts to hold APS board members and senior administrators accountable for their retaliation against him as a whistleblower.

As part of the settlement agreement that Moya signed, at least one term stands out;

(5)E Plaintiff will withdraw the IPRA request made to APS on October 18, 2017 requesting copies of all legal bills, invoices, or other legal billing materials for work performed by the law firm German and Associates between August 7, 2015 and the present.

A few things seem obvious; the first being; the leadership of the APS does not want stake and interest holders to know how much they squander on legal defenses in order to separate their guilt from their names.

Obvious as well, to those who understand the NM Inspection of Public Records Act, here cited in significant part;

A custodian receiving a written request shall permit the inspection immediately or as soon as is practicable under the circumstances, but not later than fifteen days after receiving a written request.

APS obviously failed to meet the deadline.  As of January 5th of this year, they still had not filled the request.

Are we to believe that German and Associates records are in such disarray that they can not be assembled in 79 days?  Are there so many of them that the request is burdomsome?

One would think, one would hope, that APS' efforts to keep stake and interest holders in the dark about how their money is being spent in meetings in secret and of which no recording is made, in the self interests of school board members and seniors administrators seeking to escape the consequences of their corruption and or incompetence, would strike Journal editors as newsworthy.

Apparently, it does not.

Journal publishes Moya cover up.

The Journal reports this morning, link, that former APS CFO and whistleblower Don Moya has settled his suit against APS.  It comes as no surprise of course, the Journal didn't tell the whole story.

Conveniently left out of the Journal's so called "coverage", is the money paid out to APS family lawyers; firms like the Modrall who make millions and millions of dollars protecting school board members and senior administrators from the consequences of their incompetence and corruption.

Former school board member Marty Esquivel admitted long ago, that firms like Modrall run up enormous bills making lives miserable for those who file complaints against the leadership of the APS, and then settle right before the case gets to court. APS spent over a million dollars in this case because they knew they were going to lose in court - who is kidding whom?

Nothing changed during Esquivel's "service" on the board. In fact, while he was on the board he helped himself to hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of dream team lawyers in order to himself, be allowed to admit no guilt in the face videotaped evidence of his incontrovertible guilt.

Not only that, but I have been told that Esquivel is trying to get himself declared an APS lawyer in order to get his own little pipeline to the operational fund; money that should, could and would be spent in classrooms were it not being used to buy "admissions of no guilt" for APS' privileged class.

The Journal would have you believe that APS' (read taxpayer's) liability will be limited in this case to $300K; insurers picking up the balance.

Is anyone really so ignorant to believe that the insurance company is not going to recover their loss by raising their premiums. APS already pays premiums far in excess of comparable school districts because of their record of numerous overly expensive litigation in their quest for admissions of no guilt.

APS could have settled this lawsuit two years ago for a fraction of this settlement. All they had to do was admit they made a mistake in retaliation against Don Moya, and then make him whole. Instead, they made him whole, spent an extra $750K and admitted no guilt.

There is an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS. The Journal has been part of a deliberate cover up for at least a decade.

Were they not, they would investigate and report upon ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS, if only to report that these allegations are nonsense, and that the leadership of the APS is honest to God accountable to ethics and standards high enough to protect the public interests in the public schools.

Blame Esquivel’s buddy, editor Kent Walz and current editor Karen Moses in particular for the Journal endless complicity in and complacency surrounding a very real ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.