Journal Editorial Page Editor D’Val Westphal apology disingenuous

Journal Opinion Page Editor D’Val Westphal apologized to readers this morning, for publishing a letter with factual errors and near verbatim quotes from internet posts.

Westphal did not elaborate on issues with near verbatim quotes from the internet, assuming compliance with copyright issues.

It might be as simple as a convenient excuse to avoid publishing letters from a reader who publishes his letters simultaneously on Facebook and a blog.

Within Westphal’s apology, she writes;

We want a vigorous debate of ideas.

Does she really? Does the Journal really want a vigorous debate of ideas?

I would like to begin a vigorous debate surrounding ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling in the leadership of the APS.

The debate would be between

Those who want the Journal to print the truth about ethics standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS

and

Those who want the Journal to avoid printing the truth about ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS

Westphal requires in whatever debates that she will enable; “the double checking of facts and original sources”.

The facts and evidence I would bring to the debate are substantial, incontrovertible, and are of public corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS.

They are facts and evidence of an ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling scandal in the leadership of the APS.

That the leadership of the APS won’t show up to that debate, or allow it in any venue they control, suggests that they cannot successfully debate the issue in an open and honest public discussion of facts and evidence.

That the Journal will not investigate and report upon ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS, even in the context of bond issue, mill levy and school board member elections and the hiring of superintendents speaks to the side that the Journal has taken in the debate.

That Westphal will not enable the discussion of “APS ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling” on any Journal page she edits, speaks to her personal preference that APS ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling in the leadership not be questioned or examined too closely.

It isn’t because APS executive and administrative standards of conduct are too high, or because
their actual, honest accountability to them is too swift and too certain.

APS School Board Member Ethics, Standards, Accountability and Role Modeling Audit Bullet Points

• You, the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education, voted unanimously to remove a code of ethical conduct from student standards of conduct.

• You claim to have done it on the basis of the “education and well-being of students”.

• You claim that removing a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct from student standards of conduct did not lower them

• You, as the senior-most executive role models in the APS, will not admit that student standards of conduct are your own; that in no case shall your standards of conduct be lower than the standards that you establish and have enforced upon students.

• You refuse to reinstate your role modeling clause; in no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

• You claim to be role models, but cannot point to actual standards and due processes that guarantee your performance in that role or any other.

• You voted unanimously and deliberately to not include the words “role model” among your requirements of the next superintendent; the senior-most administrative role model in the APS.

• You will not explain or defend your unwillingness to be held actually, honestly accountable of any standards of conduct at all, even the law.

• Not one of you now, nor any school board member in 25 years, nor any superintendent in 25 years has been willing to hold themselves accountable to the same standards of conduct that they establish and enforce upon students.

• Not one of you ever, has been willing to hold themselves accountable to any standard of conduct that required your candor, forthrightness and honesty.

• And you still are not.

And you still are not, having just removed a standard from your own standards of conduct precluding "... all acts, including half-truths, out-of-context statements, and even silence, that are intended to create beliefs or leave impressions that are untrue or misleading.
Like the misleading impression that you are actually honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within your public service.

In 1994, the APS Board of Education created ethical standards of conduct for students and for their adult role models including school board members and senior administrators. Then, in response to efforts to hold them accountable to the resolution;

>In 2005, the board voted unanimously to remove the role modeling clause from their own standards of conduct. Since, the board has relentlessly refused to reinstate the clause or discuss it publicly.


It had read; in no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult be lower than the standards of conduct for students

>In 2007, state and federal felony criminal misconduct was reported in the leadership of APS’ publicly funded private police force. Investigations were undertaken and the reports have been hidden by the board in violation of the NMIPRA.

>No evidence was ever turned over to the District Attorney for prosecution.

>The board is negligently allowing or knowing permitting the Operational Fund to be spent on cost-is-no-object legal defenses. As a consequence, insurance premiums have been raised and, dollars destined for classrooms have be diverted to litigation and legal weaselry instead. School board members and senior administrators are arguably unaccountable even to the law.

>The board has made a deliberate decision “role model” will not be included in the “desirable characteristics” of the next superintendent.

>The board has lowered student standards of conduct by removing from them, higher standards of conduct; specifically, deleting a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct. In so doing, they have lowered their own standards of conduct.

>School Board President David Peercy and the board claim that student standards have not been lowered by removing higher standards of conduct from them.


The people whose job it is to inform the Democracy, the Journal, KOB, KOAT, and KRQE TV refuse to investigate and report upon clear and unequivocal evidence and a record of an ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling scandal in the leadership of the APS.


How can that be explained?


Except for their complacency about, and or complicity in, the cover up of the scandal, how can their ongoing refusal to report upon the scandal be explained?


I cannot imagine even one such explanation,

Neither apparently, can any one of them.


And they have been asked to do so; over and over and over again.

City Councilor Pat Davis Forsakes APS Students Right

Approximately 10,000 of Councilor Pat Davis' constituents are students in the Albuquerque Public Schools.

For at least the second time now, Councilor Pat Davis has considered the role modeling clause that the APS School Board removed from its own standards of conduct and refuses to even consider replacing.  It reads;

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

The first time Davis considered APS' role modeling clause, he claimed that it contains “vague and coded language”.   

Davis has had a couple of opportunities to explain and or defend his contention and has not.

This time, he was asked to step up in the effort to stop the leadership of the APS from lowering student standards and abdicating en masse from their own duties as role models.

His response;

no, it’s not my problem

... but it so is, isn't it?

APS students have a right to adult role models of honest accountability to the same standards of conduct that the board establishes for them and that the administration enforces upon them.

What is so vague and coded about any of that?

In so far as any answer except yes means no,

In so far as any answer except yes means no,

KRQE, KOB TV and the Journal’s response to the question;

will you tell the truth about ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling in the leadership of the APS?

Their response, to ignore the question, means no.

KOAT is thinking about it

APS Superintendent Search continues under a cloud and in the dark.

The APS Board of Education made a decision recently regarding their next superintendent; he or she will not be held accountable as a role model. They flatly refused to include "role model" in the "desirable characteristics" of their next superintendent.

The next supt will be the first one hired since the school board lowered standards of conduct district wide by removing higher standards of conduct from student standards of conduct.

Finalists will be selected in meetings in secret, of which no recording will be made and, over which there will be no oversight.

APS Superintendent Search for Candidates is Finished

The recruitment window has closed in the search for candidates competing to be APS’ next superintendent; “role model” specifically and deliberately excepted.

Now the process moves into the dark; meetings in as much secrecy as the law will allow, without oversight and without recording.

The next APS Superintendent will be subject to some set of standards of conduct.
That set includes

• standards; the law and the like, and
• ethics; higher standards of conduct than the law; most require candor, forthrightness and honesty, and
• accountability

There being not one wit of difference between the highest standards of conduct and the lowest, if neither is enforced, accountability is paramount.

Look for due process where any stake or interest holder can file a complaint against a school board member or senior administrator, and where that complaint will see a principled resolution, free of their undue influence and powerful enough to hold them accountable even against their will.

• To what ethics and standards of conduct will the next superintendent be held?

• By what due process will they be held accountable?

If School Board President David Peercy and the Board are unwilling to respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly to those questions, you have to wonder why.

Why except that they are ashamed of the truth; except that they don’t want to suffer the consequences of the truth being known?

A textbook example of a lack of character and courage.

Not unlike the media's ongoing refusal to investigate and report upon the ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling scandal in the leadership of the APS.

The Only Defense of an Indefensible Position is to Hide It

APS School Board President David Peercy has to defend an indefensible position;

that student standards of conduct can be lowered in order that his and other school board members and their next superintendent's standards of conduct can be lowered concurrently.

Peercy and the Board’s position is indefensible.
Peercy and the Board are in hiding.

Rather than respond to legitimate questions about their individual and collective ethics, standards, accountability, and role modeling, they are in hiding behind;

1. ridiculous rules on public participation in their decision making,
2. their publicly funded private police force, and behind
3. a complicit, complacent or completely incompetent local “news” media.

Peercy and the board deleted two enabling documents in

1. APS’ student standards of conduct, 
2. their own standards of conduct, and in 
3. the district’s only character education program.

Within one of those documents, the Pillar of Trustworthiness, and within it standards to which students were to hold themselves honestly accountable. Obedience to which; compulsory, if students to were to develop and maintain their good character.

• Honesty in communications is expressing the truth as best we know it and not conveying it in a way likely to mislead or deceive. There are three dimensions:

• Truthfulness. Truthfulness is presenting the facts to the best of our knowledge. Intent is the crucial distinction between truthfulness and truth itself. Being wrong is not the same thing as lying, although honest mistakes can still damage trust insofar as they may show sloppy judgment.

• Sincerity. Sincerity is genuineness, being without trickery or duplicity. It precludes all acts, including half-truths, out-of-context statements, and even silence, that are intended to create beliefs or leave impressions that are untrue or misleading.

• Candor. In relationships involving legitimate expectations of trust, honesty may also require candor, forthrightness and frankness, imposing the obligation to volunteer information that another person needs to know.


The Albuquerque Public School Board of Education lowered student standards of conduct in order that they and their next superintendent cannot be held accountable, even as role models, to standards of conduct that require them to respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly to legitimate questions about the public interests and about their public service.

Else, there is a good and ethical reason to have lowered student standards of conduct; a reason that I cannot imagine and no one of them will articulate.

Right, and a bag of Mint Milano Cookies serves five.

Character, courage, honor, and higher standards of conduct than the law.

There is a difference of opinion on the standards of conduct to which school board members and senior administrators are, and should be held accountable.

• Standards; clear and unequivocal
• Accountability; due process wherein a stake or interest holder can hold a school board member or senior administrator actually and honestly accountable under a process assuring a principled resolution.

Willingly or not, holding oneself accountable to the law is required by the law.

Holding oneself accountable to the law means holding oneself accountable to the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.

The law is the enunciation of the standards of conduct that the entirety of higher standards of conduct, is higher than.

Holding oneself accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law requires character and courage and honor in proportion to what the recently deleted standards of conduct would call a person of character’s “willingness to do more than the law requires and less than the law allows”.

Should APS School Board Members

• Expect students to model and promote honest accountability to higher standards of conduct than the law? And if they do,

Should stake and interest holders

• Expect school board members and senior administrators to step up as role models of honest to God accountability to the same standards of conduct that they establish for, and enforce upon students?

More importantly, should this decision be made in secret;
behind closed doors, without recording and without oversight?

One last question; why is none of this of any interest to the people who are supposed to be informing the Democracy?

APS/Journal Criminal Cover Up Remains Unresolved

The leadership of the APS and their lawyers CAN NOT produce a public record that proves that the felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of the APS’ publicly funded private police force was ever investigated by any other agency of law enforcement or that any evidence or testimony or investigative report was ever turned over to the DA.

The leadership of the APS by and through their lawyers, WILL NOT produce public records including the reports of investigations of those allegations of criminal misconduct, done by private investigators working for the board or for their lawyers.

Nor can the Journal provide any evidence that the Journal investigated and reported upon the board’s COVER UP of the state and federal felony criminal misconduct that the Journal first reported.

APS  Top Cop (the second in a row)  Finds Himself on Hot Seat, link


Or they would

David Peercy; Senior-most Role Model in the Entire APS Of what, exactly?

In the past month or so, APS School Board President David Peercy has

• Continued to keep off any school board meeting agenda; the restoration in executive and administrative standards of conduct, of a role modeling clause that used to read;

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

• Ensured that “role model” and role modeling will not be listed among the desirable characteristics in the next superintendent.

• Deleted two enabling documents from APS student and adult standards of conduct;

1. The Aspen Declaration, and
2. The Pillars of Character Counts!

• Thereby, simultaneously lowering both

a. student standards of conduct and
b. adult role models standards of conduct.

• Refused to answer questions in public and on the record, regarding the deletion of the enabling documents and the cascade effect on student and adult standards of conduct.

And most importantly;

• Announced that the rest of the candidate selection process will take place in meetings in secret from stake and interest holders; meetings he will not allow to be recorded and over which there will be no oversight.


David Peercy and the Board voted unanimously to end the district's only district wide commitment to help students develop and maintain their good character.




And what about the media; KOB, KOAT, KRQE and Journal?
Where are they?

What are they going to do about this?

KRQE, KOAT, KOB TV and the Journal Say “No” to Scandal Coverage

Local news outlets were asked whether they were willing to investigate and report upon the ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling scandal in the leadership of the APS.  My email to them read;

I write to you wondering if you are willing to report, given sufficient incontrovertible proof, that

· the APS Board of Education has reneged on a still binding school board resolution by

· lowering student standards of conduct, and because they are the district’s senior-most role models of student standards of conduct,

· lowering their own standards of conduct.

· Further that they accomplished this by deleting from the existing standards of conduct, the enabling document and definitions; a 2021 word long nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct called “the Pillars of Character Counts!”

Yes or no, please

To the extent that when the question is;

are you willing to tell the truth?

any answer except “yes” means “no”, their answer is no; witness the absence of one single investigation or report upon the scandal, even to report that there isn’t one.

APS Superintendent Search Proceeds in Secret and Under a Cloud

The Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education is in the process of hiring a superintendent.

The remainder of the candidate selection process will be conducted in meetings in secret, without oversight, and without recording.

The board in recent unanimous decisions, has

1. Stricken “role model” from their next superintendents standards of conduct, and

2. Lowered standards of conduct district-wide by removing from them, a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethics. and

3. Ended, at once and for all, any district-wide effort to help develop and maintain good character in students.

Their votes were taken under circumstances that prohibited questioning them about what they were doing and why. Public forum was limited to two minutes in front of an empty room.


Their sway over the local media continues unabated.

There has not been a single report on the lowering of APS standards or on the abdication en masse of the entire leadership of the APS, from their duties and obligations as role models of student standards of conduct.

APS School Board Dumps Another Enabling Document from APS Standards of Conduct

When the APS School Board voted unanimously to lower their own standards of conduct, in so doing, they rejected another of the enabling documents forming basis for character education APS standards of conduct.

Their 1994 Resolution to begin character education in earnest in the APS, was based on the board's endorsement of the Aspen Declaration link.


The Aspen Declaration consists of eight core beliefs about the nature and importance of character:

1. The next generation will be the stewards of our communities, nation and planet in extraordinarily critical times.

2. In such times, the well-being of our society requires an involved, caring citizenry with good moral character.

3. People do not automatically develop good moral character; therefore, conscientious efforts must be made to help young people develop the values and abilities necessary for moral decision making and conduct.

4. Effective character education is based on core ethical values rooted in democratic society, in particular, respect, responsibility, trustworthiness, justice and fairness, caring, and civic virtue and citizenship.

5. These core ethical values transcend cultural, religious and socioeconomic differences.

6. Character education is, first and foremost, an obligation of families and faith communities, but schools and youth-service organizations also have a responsibility to help develop the character of young people.

7. These responsibilities are best achieved when these groups work in concert.

8. The character and conduct of our youth reflect the character and conduct of society; therefore, every adult has the responsibility to teach and model the core ethical values and every social institution has the responsibility to promote the development of good character.

APS School Board Meetings in Secret Need a Watcher

The APS Board of Education intends to meet in the next few weeks to hire the next superintendent; the one who is not expected to be a role model.

A number of those meetings will be conducted in secret from stake and interest holders.

By the board’s own deliberate decision, their meetings in secret are not recorded.

The APS board has a history (many of which have been admitted by former school board members) of violating the NM Open Meetings Act in meetings in secret.

Having, with forethought and after deliberation, removed the “Pillar of Trustworthiness” from their own standards of conduct, the board and their search for a superintendent, can no longer be considered trust worthy.

At the very least, their meetings in secret should be recorded – from doors closed to doors open.

Better; include a trustworthy watcher to witness meetings and to report violations to stake and interest holders.

Instead; they will meet in secret and hire whichever candidate looks like they will do the best job covering up the ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling scandal in the leadership.

And still, not newsworthy