Are school board members role models?

They are of course, but I mean, in some sense where they can actually be held accountable.

APS has published their school board candidate questionnaires.  The candidates' individual responses can be found through links on APS' website, link.

One of the questions reads;

7. What is the role of individual board members?

School Board Candidate and School Board President Paula Maes answered the question by writing;

The role of individual board members is to do the best of his/her ability to serve the children of APS and work as a whole made up of seven board members to be committed to the well-being of the district.

In response to question number 9;

What unique qualities would you bring to the Board of Education?

Maes replied;

The qualities I possess and would bring to the Board are as a proud parent of 4 APS graduates, and I have the experience as board member, having held a position on the board for 12 years.

She did not mention her role as a role model for reasons I will now develop.

The first rule in any set of rules is, you have to follow the rules.
You have to hold yourself honestly accountable to the rules.
If that is not the expectation, there is no point in any of the rest of the rules.

That makes the number one role of any leader, to show everyone else what it looks like to hold oneself accountable to the rules.  It is the whole point of the fable about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree.

At some point you have to do something more than tell kids tales of character and courage and honor, you have to actually show them what they look like.

I posit;

the most important role of individual board members, is as a role model of accountability to APS' standards of conduct and competence; personal accountability to rule number 1.

Board members have no choice but to hold themselves honestly accountable to the standards they establish and enforce upon students.  If the Pillars of Character Counts! are too high a standard, they have two choices; lower the standards far enough to enable their compliance or resign.  Pretending accountability to higher standards of conduct is categorically unacceptable. 

School Board candidates who are unwilling to declare the standards and accountability that will define their own service on the school board should resign from the race.

I am disappointed that not one candidate mentioned role modeling as an important role for individual school board members.  I won't try to hold them accountable for what could be an inadvertent omission.  It is fair to hold them accountable for their answer to two questions;

1. If you are elected to the school board, will you hold yourself honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct that you establish and enforce upon students?
2. Are the Pillars of Character Counts! that standard, or will you seek to lower those standards in open and honest public discussion of standards and accountability in the APS?

Paula Maes has the distinction of actually voting to strike the role modeling clause from her own standards of conduct.  She voted to strike the language which read;

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

Paula Maes, when there were still power and resources to be spent, was the President of the Character Counts! Leadership Council.  When the money ran out, and while she was looking at litigation compelling her and the board, as role models of APS' student standards of conduct, to litigate according to the nationally recognized, accepted, respected code of ethics, she voted to remove the language and her own liability under it.

She has never had to explain her action, not in either of the school board elections she has run in since.  Co-incidentally, she is the President and CEO of the New Mexico Broadcasters Association, link.  The appearance of a conflict of interests is generated by Maes' close association with local news directors and station owners and their obligation to report impartially.

The manifest product of the conflict is, not one of them will investigate and report upon credible evidence of an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, in which Paula Maes is pivotal.

If you go to a school board candidate forum, and you should, make an effort to put standards and accountability on the table.

The next forum, of which I am aware, is 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, January 23, in the John Milne Community Board Room at 6400 Uptown Blvd. NE.

I would go, but I'm banned from the forum.  Litigation will prove that I am banned not because of my conduct, but because of the content of my speech; I would find a way to stand in front of them and ask them to explain why students are expected to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!, and they are not.

You're outa here!

It isn't school board enforcer Marty Esquivel's unlawful restraining order that is keeping me out, it is his publicly funded private police force; his Praetorian Guard.




photos Mark Bralley