Oma on Board: October 2012

Journal Editors Strain at a Gnat and Swallow a Camel

To read them write it, link, the editors are much agitated over more tax dollars fattening the wallets of APS administrators. So was I. They are upset as well by the administrative junket 18 of them took at taxpayer expense. So was I.Straining on the gnat; Journal editors have taken a stand; draw the line on stupid spending.There is a school board election coming up. There is a bond issue election as well. ...

APS surrenders bullying stats

You will be comforted to learn that bullying occurs on campuses and in classrooms, on average, only five times per school, per year. Please take a moment to let that number sink in,and the circumstances that generated it.As predicted, link, there is a paucity in data.Bullying in the APS is no longer the story.The story now is; how does a guy that for his entire superintendency, has not collected statistics on bullying, drugs, weapons,...

Why is the Journal hiding Winston Brooks' golden parachute?

In a recent editorial, link, in response to NMSU President Barbara Couture's half million dollar payout, editors argued that it was time to consider "clipping public employees’ golden parachutes once and for all". Their interest in clipping APS Supt Winston Brooks' wings, not so much.APS Supt Winston Brooks' parachute is 50% bigger than Couture's and gets no mention in the Journal; why? Why is the Journal keeping taxpayers...

Vote early; end the phone calls and mailings

State Representative Sheryl Williams-Stapleton offers relief to voters besieged by election season phone calls and mailings; just vote early. According to her own latest mailing to voters;Wanna stop the political mail?Wanna stop the political calls?Vote early! Vote for Sheryl!And then figure out who might want to call you or send you a political mailing, call or write to them first, and tell them you already voted? Yeah,...

Journal weighs in on Indianapolis trip

The Journal covered the APS in Indianapolis story this morning, link; "covered" being a relative term. The journal offered its tacit approval of APS' justifications for the expenditure of $34K and a week of their (our) time.The "justifications" are as follows;"drumming up interest in next year's event" "they will be responsible for many of the logistics of next year’s conference""we can look at how other districts are doing things" and"We get a lot of good benefit, I think, from collaborating with a lot of people.” How...

Soto, overworked and overextended?

In justifying raises for three senior administrators, APS Supt Winston Brooks pointed to the increasing amount of work they are expected to do. He claims additional burdens in recent years justified a 6.6% boost in salary.One of the overworked and overextended senior administrators is Associate Superintendent for Secondary Education Eddie Soto, link.One of the reasons he is overworked and overextended is that he decided to accept a position on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Latino Administrators...

In secret pay hikes for APS top administrators revealed

The Journal reports this morning, link, at the end of the week and when all the players are out of town, that three top administrators received pay raises last July. Nowhere is it explained, must less justified, why that information was kept secret during contract negotiations and ratification with all the employees who weren't getting raises, and have not gotten raises, for several years.When the teachers and others who work everyday...

"Marketing APS, the how and the why.

Former talking head, Calendar Queen, Crisis Manager and now renowned "expert" on the "marketing" of public school systems, APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta is on her way to an annual gathering of the leaderships of the largest public school systems in the country, link. The cost yet to be released.Meeting in Indianapolis, the fall conference of the Council of the Great City Schools will feature a presentation...

Is Korte really krazy, or just a really pathetic role model?

APS School Board Member Kathy Korte continues to raise issues over own mental health.Were enough questions not raised by her unprovoked attack on photojournalist Mark Bralley during a community input meeting; more questions are now raised by the hours she spent obsessing on Bralley, culminating in her design of a halloween costume she thinks might offend him. In the press card she is holding, she describes Bralley as "white trash".When...

"Let go of the camera"

Blogger and photojournalist Mark Bralley has been banned from City Center.The most important thing to note about the banning letter,it was created without due process for Bralley.The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution reads in significant part; Mark Bralley cannot bedeprived of ... liberty ... without due process of law.Bralley has not lost his liberty to a piece of paper,his liberty was taken from him by an armed, unaccredited and un-certified...

Royale Dá/KOAT have not responded

The story is newsworthy, photojournalist Mark Bralley was mugged by a school board member. But the story KOAT told, simply wasn't accurate. They have been informed about their inaccuracies.KOAT won't respond to my complaint that they have misrepresented the truth.Why not?Bralley reports the Dá's last question to him was,Is there anything you would like to add ...? To which he replied,"Yes, I am not happy with the way you've...

Getting the truth out

In February of next year, a majority of APS school board members will run for re-election.Every one of them is part of a conspiracy to cover up the cover up of felony criminal misconduct by senior APS administrators.And that's not the half of it. It's not the fourth of it.The only way the word is going to get out to voter stakeholders,is for the press to do their part; fulfill their obligationto fully inform the electorate.The press have...

KOAT called out on false report

KOAT's Royale Dá reported yesterday on APS School Board Member Kathy Korte's assault and battery on blogger photojournalist Mark Bralley. KOAT has provided no link to their report.In her report, she slandered me; not by name but as Bralley's "associate". She reported inaccurately on Marty Esquivel's unlawful restraining order, and then announced that I had disrupted board meetings, an allegation I deny, and an allegation that is supported by no evidence. School board meetings are recorded; if I had disrupted...

Korte suggests Bralley is a threat to her children

APS Board Member Kathy Korte said in the Journal;“If I’m feeling threatened again, if I’m with my kids or at a school event, I need this documentation to show there is a pattern of behavior here,” she said. The fact is, Bralley would throw himself between a threat and her kids, between a real threat and her, if the truth be known.APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta is spreading lies as well; telling people I threatened her family.APS School Board President Paula Maes is telling people I'm a threat...

Journal covers Korte blow up

In the Journal this morning, link, a report on the assault and battery committed by APS School Board Member Kathy Korte on blogger and photojournalist Mark Bralley.Korte of course denies her misconduct claiming Bralley was pushing his camera in her face. Security tapes from inside the boardroom would show her closing the distance between them, not Bralley.Think about it, the "altercation" took place in the front of one of the most...

Kathy Korte goes berserk

I received an email from Executive Director of Board of Education Services Brenda Yager. The email was with regard to the community engagement meeting Monday evening, and carried a subject line reading;"You Are Invited".The body read;Dear Mr. MacQuigg,This is a forum that your group might be interested in participating as well. As surprised as I was by it, I took it to be an invitation to attend.It was not, as I found out when we,...

You really couldn't ask for more publicity

It would be hard to argue that APS didn't do what they reasonably could, to inform interest holders know about the community input and engagement meeting tonight; at least those who pay attention to the Journal and the TV news. I don't know if the invite is running on their digital billboard at Del Norte High School.You can't make people pay attention any more than you can make students pay attention.The Journal ran a decent piece on the meeting, I even saw two pieces on TV. Oddly, I couldn't find a link to any of...

Would-be shooters expelled

Two middle school students with apparently serious intentions to shoot up Tony Hillerman Middle School have been expelled. Meaning; "they will not return to THMS this school year.Meaning what? they'll be back at Tony Hillerman next year?they'll be at some other APS school the rest of this year?These are only questions until they are answered.Why do we know so little about the terrorists, bullies, and run of the mill chronically disruptive students? Why do we not know what happens to them, where they go, or why they're...

Baby rescued? or victim of opportunists?

Has a mountain been made of a molehill, link?Man leaves sleeping baby alone in car;911 gets called. Isn't that illegal?Whatever real emergency existed beforeMartinez' one or two State Police officersbecame involved, ended when they did,and before 911 was dialed, and the mediasummoned.... just sayingDid you see, link, Senator Tim Jennings' version of how well he and Keith Gardner are actually getting along?As opposed to the Governor...

CACoC invited to APS meeting

The Citizens Advisory Council on Communication has been invited to APS' public meeting on how they engage families and the community. I have been invited as well.The meeting is scheduled for 6 pm, Monday October 8th. It is likely to take place in the Martin-DeLayo Room, though that information is not part of their release, link.They make it very clear, the purpose of the meeting is to "gather public input", The word communication,...

Chanting "Mayor Berry is quite contrary"

protestors outside the Dixon Award ceremonies challenged the decision of the NM FOG to give Mayor Richard Berry a Dixon.Being a Hero of Transparency is not about how much low hanging fruit can be hung on a website, it is about how hard you make it to get to the records and meetings, they don't want you to see. Records and meetings that enjoy no ethical exception under the NM IPRA or Open Meetings Act.Those records should be easily...

APS leadership comes out of hiding

It deserves more than two column inches buried deep in the Journal. It is worthy of more than "brief" mention.Board members and senior administrators have opened a door they can never close. For nearly two decades I have been asking the leadership of the APS to point to a time, a day, and a place where they will engage in open and honest public discussion with the community members they serve. Finally, they have.They have pointed to time, 6 pm,a day, Monday, October 8th, anda place, 6400 Uptown Blvd, link.This is...

"APS seeking input on community relations"

reads the Journal headline.According to the Journal arm of the APS communications effort;Albuquerque Public Schools wants public comment as it considers changing the way it engages families and the community. A meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Monday (Oct 8th) at the APS Building, 6400 Uptown NE.The leadership of the APS wants“... to expand (their) efforts to make sure we are providing ways to get input and engage the Albuquerque...

Two weeks later, bullying forum "notes" still not posted.

The leadership of the APS is fond of wading in among the great unwashed, to "gather their input". They are there instead, to improve APS' perception among interest holders. They are there to schmooze. They would have us never mind, the single most effective thing they could do to improve their public perception would be to improve their performance.Rather than talk about their failure to (substantially) improve their performance; they go out to "gather input".Every time they gather input, they promise or imply,...

Were it not that Esquivel and Maes would have me arrested for doing so,

I would be at the public forum at the school board meeting tomorrow night.I will not be there because a publicly funded private police force will stand in my way. The APS Police will stand between me and my free exercise of my Constitutionally protected human rights. They will stand there, with their guns, their mace, tasers, handcuffs and their badges; every cop tool there is, except a running tape recorder, and deprive me of my liberty.Were...