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.