Do Brooks and the board really need their own Police Department?

Their legislative agenda, link, indicates APS' lobbyist will be lobbying for their very own publicly funded private police department, a far cry from their publicly funded private police force.

A police "department" is a step up from police "force"
The APS Police force has oversight,
an APS police department will not.
They will be accountable only to Brooks and the board.

Brooks and the board say they need a "department".
Only if they are a police department can their officers

"... specialize in working with children 
to focus on protection of students and 
enhance their educational success."

It is apparently impossibly difficult to get exactly the same officers to understand something as members of a police force, that they will be able to grasp easily when they are members of a police department.

What they're really looking for is the authority to commission their own officers.   Currently, APS officers enjoy commissions under the Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston.  Houston amounts to the sum total of independent oversight over the APS Police force.

Among the things he doesn't tolerate, is them self-investigating felony criminal misconduct, link.  Once they slip this through the legislature, they will be back to self investigation of their own corruption.  Assuming they ever stopped.

They're covering up the scandal in the leadership of their private police force, link.  They're covering up the cover up.  They're hiding the findings of at least three investigations into misappropriation of funds and harassment of whistleblowers by running illegal NCIC criminal background checks on them.  Not to mention the one they ran on an associate superintendent's fiance.

They're hiding evidence of felony criminal misconduct by senior APS administrators.

When they are made a department, they will have the authority to self-investigate their corruption again.  And with no one to complain to except the supt and board whose police force it is; whose Praetorian Guard it is.

Would they do such a thing, given the appearance of conflicts of interests it creates?

As a matter of fact, yes, they would.

Will the Journal continue to ignore it?

Apparently yes, they will.