Oma on Board

Kent Walz; why is this not newsworthy?

There are two standards of conduct in the Albuquerque Public Schools, one for students and another for administrators, board members, (and other adults, none of whom influence executive or administrative decision making).

The standard of conduct for adults is the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings. They will hold themselves accountable for nothing, if it isn't against the law.

Read their entreaty in their current newsletter, link, encouraging employees to make use of their whistleblower hotline and

report fraud, waste and abuse of state resources

... all criminal acts; all against the law.

Nowhere in the newsletter, nor in any other place, will you find any mention of administrators and board members being held accountable to any higher standards of conduct, higher than the law. Nowhere will you find accountability to any code of ethical behavior.

Except in the Student Behavior Handbook, link, where on page three you will find, here highlighted in significant part;

CITIZENSHIP
Students are expected to be good citizens. They are expected to:
• model and promote the pillars of CHARACTER COUNTS! (Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship)
• respect authority, property, and the rights of others.
• avoid confrontation and any activity that has the potential to cause a verbal or physical conflict.
• maintain standards of integrity and responsibility.
• maintain a safe school environment.
• report any/all information/circumstances related to campus safety and problems (fights, weapons,
or drugs on campus).

The Pillars of Character Counts! are a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of "ethical" conduct.

On its face, the requirement applies only to students. It reads; students are expected to model and promote "ethical" behavior.

Then there is role modeling; the obligation of adults, particularly administrators and board members, to show students what it looks like to hold oneself honestly accountable to standards of conduct like the Pillars.

If we really want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone has to show them what it looks like. Someone has to show them what it looks like to hold oneself honestly accountable; accountable by means of a system over which they have no undue influence, impartial, and powerful enough to hold them accountable even against their will.

Instead, administrators and board members hold themselves accountable to each other, and each other only. The School Board does not offer even one venue where a complaint can be filed against them; not one. A complaint against a senior administrator, even over criminal misconduct, will be investigated by a subordinate. The appearance of a conflict of interest could not be more obvious nor more unacceptable.

Recently, the administration and board rewrote School Board Policy to eliminate executive review of the administration of complaints against administrators, including APS Supt Winston Brooks. The promise that the board would "review and approve" every single whistleblower complaint, was simply removed.

As but one, albeit particularly egregious, example of board members and senior administrators accountability only to each other;

In February 2007, the Journal investigated and reported upon, link, a scandal in the "leadership" APS Police and central office. The APS Police force investigated felony criminal misconduct committed by APS senior administrators. They reported what they found to Brooks and the Board. No evidence of felony criminal misconduct was ever handed over to the DA, even, or especially, as statutes of limitation expired.

In truth, senior administrators and board members are not even accountable to the law.

APS has a whistleblower hotline. It's called "Ethical Advocate" because that's the name of the third party vendor who acts as a clearinghouse for complaints; Ethical Advocate, link, and not because "ethics" are involved.

In fact, you will find the word "ethical" used nowhere else; not in the Employee newsletter item, link, encouraging employees to report (administrative) misconduct, nor in the full page dedicated to using Ethical Advocate, link.

Back when the whistleblower program was called Silent Whistle instead of Ethical Advocate, employees were encouraged to report unethical conduct specifically. An article in the Perspective read;

SilentWhistle is the new APS Fraud, Waste and Abuse Hotline that allows individuals to communicate their knowledge of any possible inappropriate, unethical or illegal activities within the district. (emphasis added)

There once was a link to the Perspective article and specific mention of ethics. The link has since been destroyed.

After a number of complaints were filed alleging unethical conduct by APS Supt Winston Brooks specifically, the word and concept of ethical misconduct has been methodically and deliberately removed not only from the whistleblower program, but from both School Board Policy and Administrative Procedural Directives.

There are two standards of conduct in the APS, one for students, one for adults. The student standards and expectations are higher than those for adults.
There is not a single senior administrator nor board member who will manifest the character and the courage to hold themselves honestly accountable as a role model of the standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students;
not Supt Winston Brooks, not COO Brad Winter, not Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta, not APS Foundation Director Phill Casaus, nor any other member of their "leadership" team, link.
There is not a single member of the school board who can manifest the character and the courage to talk, openly, honestly and on the record, about administrative and executive standards of conduct and accountability.
Not Paula Maes, not Kathy Korte, not Marty Esquivel, not David Peercy, not David Robbins, not Lorenzo Garcia, and not Analee Maestas.

These allegations and the credible evidence and testimony that support them are newsworthy.

And the only reason Journal
Managing Editor Kent Walz,
here shown giving Winston
Brooks a transparency award
while he, Brooks, and School
Board enforcer Marty Esquivel
covered up the cover up of
criminal misconduct by
APS senior administrators,
won't see an investigation and
report done on the ethics and
accountability scandal in
the leadership of the APS, is because he is in cahoots;
he is part of the cover up.

I would be happy to publish any credible alternative explanation.

cc Walz upon posting.

framegrab Mark Bralley

"How 'Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?" (After They've Seen Paree)

APS spends $11.3M on "techbooks" instead of textbooks,
Journal editorial, link, APS website, link.

Were Yogi Berra around (the quote is variously attributed) he would point to the "box of Pandoras" the APS School Board has opened; they are going to teach some students how to access information electronically, to become independent learners, while at the same time trying to control what they access and the rate at which they access it.

It is clear, the board intends to fold e-reading into their antiquated and obsolete model for education. The techbooks will be used as another fancier whip to be laid on the flanks of the dead horse called cemetery seating; every student on the same page, in the same (e)book, on the same day.

Someone else first pointed out, there is no stopping an idea whose time has come. And there will be no stopping engaged learns who figure out how to get to everything at once, rather than plodding along in classrooms with five rows of six desks (real or electronic) with 30 other students. How are we going to keep them on the farm, in their seats and on the same page, once they've seen Paree; the ability to be on any page, in any book, and on any day?

In an age where even the least sophisticated devices have access to nearly the entire wealth of human knowledge, the APS School Board has decided to buy for students instead, separate e-books for every subject. They will buy a book each for chemistry, physics, science, ...

Though each book comes with "videos, interactive lessons, educational games, reading passages and glossaries", they carry only the one subject. Videos, interactive lessons, educational games, reading passages and glossaries for any other subject will cost (taxpayers) more.

Nearly always a step behind everyone else, the "leadership" of the APS will dip into the future of education buying e-readers with integral speed and scope limiting governors. Instead of providing "the richest learning activities" by means of a machine that can access any subject, they've decided to buy machines dedicated to individual subjects; one "book" for each class.

Am I really the only one who sees the thought of a backpack full of e-readers, each for a different subject, as some how missing the point of e-readers?

APS' M&O tops Council of Great City Schools list

The APS School Board will celebrate tonight, link, that APS' Maintenance and Operations Department has been named the "top performing district" by the Council of the Great City Schools, of which APS Supt Winston Brooks is the past chair.

No indication whatsoever, was given as to why the award was given.

No mention made of criteria, other than Brooks' influence, that might have been used to justify the selection.

Recently, an audit was done of APS' management, link. Auditors found;

the absence of a periodically acknowledged code of conduct
the absence of HR processes to address nepotism conflicts of interest
apparent lack of accountability for the protection of district assets
a lack of process to notify the State Auditor of the discovery of any violation of a criminal statute in connection with financial affairs
lack of background checks on those in fiduciary positions
a lack of communication of management responses to conduct/ethical lapses
the Districts practices and processes are reactive in nature (v proactive)
board policy and procedural directives are outdated and inconsistently written
employee standards of conduct are sparsely worded; due care of District property is not stated
no code of conduct is formally acknowledged (not since the leadership abandoned its obligations as role models of the Pillars of Character Counts!)
the whistle blower program is highly utilized (but due process is still being denied to every single one of the complaints)
management culture shows varying emphasis on integrity and ethics
no formal metric for measuring management responses to problems
District management's approach to allegations of nepotism, cronyism and protection of property needs improvement
it is unclear whether the District has reported to the State Auditor discoveries of cash fraud and property losses, or that they intend to rectify this finding in the future
a perception that management is ineffective or ambivalent about enforcing standards of conduct, and enforces rules inconsistently
the school board is not focused on evaluating the effectiveness of "the tone at the top" (yet they have extended Winston Brooks contract three times, three years into the future)
the district does not publish a code of conduct
significant turnover in the Chief Financial Officer position (the district argued "individual circumstances" for turnover; the record indicates otherwise)
District assets are not protected from unauthorized access or use
the District doesn't benchmark supervisory ratios
overtime for managers is not tracked
specific delegations of authority are not defined
individuals hired for similar positions with similar education receive widely different compensation
there is no management-related training program
no systematic confirmation that required performance reviews are actually done
it is unclear whether specific promotion criteria are documented or understood (the Council of the Great City Schools auditors wrote; administrative evaluations are subjective and unrelated to promotion or step placement)
promotion criteria do not include adherence to behavioral standards
HR policy does not require scrutiny of job candidates with frequent job changes or gaps in employment history
there is no stated policy requiring employees to report criminal convictions
credit checks are not done on employees with fiduciary responsibilities who handle cash
activity level objectives are not periodically reviewed for continued relevance
a lack of specific performance objectives in activity areas
there are no formal processes for periodic risk assessment or root cause analysis of recurring issues
I. T. back up plans are not periodically tested
formal identification of risks at the activity-level have not been performed
information on the function of internal controls has not been developed
APS does not maintain an Ombudsman function
no formalized process for employees to provide recommendations for improvements
suppliers, customers and others are not made aware of District standards and expectations
such standards are not reinforced in routine dealings
improprieties are not reported to appropriate personnel
no documentation of closure of complaints made to the Service Center or to the Superintendent
no clear metrics showing top management is aware of the volume or nature of complaints
formal monitoring of internal controls needs improvement
personnel are not periodically required to acknowledge compliance with the code of conduct
the Internal Audit Department is understaffed and therefore consumed with property issues and activity accounts at the expense of systematic issues of risk.
the District does not conduct formal self-assessments of control processes
no evidence of a single process or clearinghouse for tracking issues and corrective actions

And yet, APS' M&O Department tops is a "top performer".

It pays to be connected.

photo Mark Bralley