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.