Does anyone suppose that the lack of oversight exists only at the school level?
Leadership begins at the top. First the board oversees the Superintendent, then he oversees the administration, and the administration oversees the schools. Clearly the schools were not overseen, therefore the administration was not overseen, therefore the superintendent was not overseen, and all because the board is not overseen; the turnout in school board elections varies around 3 and 4 percent.
The people are supposed to provide oversight over the school board. The people have no idea how little they know about the wielding of their power and the spending of their resources. They have no idea what is being hidden from them by the leadership of the APS and their friends in the media.
Right now, School Board President Marty Esquivel and Superintendent Winston Brooks are spending tax dollars trying to litigate exception for themselves, from the consequences of their several violations of my civil rights.
I have reason to believe there are irregularities in the contracts with their lawyers; for one thing, they don't exist.
As well, there is no reason to believe that "case analyses" have been presented to the board. The presentation of the case analysis is the only method by which the entire board can bless, or not, the expenditure of operational funds, money that could be spent in classrooms, on legal defenses for other board members and administrators.
If there is corruption afoot, this is the mechanism that is supposed to end it. This is where the elected earn their keep.
At this point, Brooks and Esquivel are accountable only to an administrator and a subordinate of the subordinate. Subordinate oversight is oxymoronic. It is nonsense on its face. If nothing else, it creates the appearances of conflicts of interest and impropriety.
You have to wonder, if Esquivel and Brooks are confident that the case analyses will justify their spending on their own defenses, why won't they present the analyses to the whole board for their blessing?
Why do they have to hide them, if there is nothing in them, to hide?
According to responses to requests made of APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta,
The leadership of the APS has never had a standards and accountability audit, not one, that did not include findings of;
- a lack of standards,
- a lack of accountability, and/or
- a lack of record keeping.
There is a profound lack of oversight and accountability in the leadership of the APS. There is good ol' boy accountability at best, and no more.
Have you ever noticed that when an administrator screws up so badly that they have to fire them, the immediate supervisor never gets fired too? Who got fired when APS Police Chief Gil Lovato got caught, link. The buck doesn't stop anywhere except in the lap of the poor soul unlucky enough to get caught red handed. Everyone else's butt is covered, by an unlimited budget for litigation, even against the public interests.
There is no real oversight (or there would not be so many screw ups) over their wielding of decision making power and their spending of more than a billion tax dollars a year.
It is the obligation of the press, to investigate and report upon the lack of standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS, just as it would be their obligation to investigate and report upon the high standards and certain accountability to them;
if that were the case,
and it is not.
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