Oma on Board

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. In deciding who to elect and whether to give them millions and millions of dollars to spend, we need to know that they will do it effectively and efficiently.

Past performance is an excellent predictor of future performance.

The leadership of the APS, the school board and senior administration, recently spent a whole lot of our money refreshing their digs at 6400 Uptown Blvd.

Candid, forthright and honest accounting of spending, hidden from taxpayers.

The manner in which they spent tax dollars there, is a
good predictor of how they will spend tax dollars there.

Citizens have a Constitutionally protected human right to know how their trust and treasure have been spent. The hiding of the accounting of the spending there, is ethically indefensible.

APS COO Brad Winter steadfastly refuses to surrender a candid, forthright and honest accounting of his spending the last time we trusted him with the money we give him to educate our children.

Did he really spend $800 a piece for board member chairs?
Is it alright with voter taxpayers if he does it again?

Will he refuse to provide candid, forthright and honest accounting of his spending of the money he wants us to entrust to him next February?

The editors admonish the board and senior administration to;

consider how it looks to the many at ground level —

and to the taxpayers who foot the bill.

A gnat, compared to how the ethics and accountability scandal cover up will look to voters, when, if, the establishment news ever gets around to investigating and reporting upon it.

Denial of due process to whistleblower complaints.
Cover up of felony criminal misconduct by senior APS administrators
Universal abdication of role modeling responsibilities by the entire "leadership" of the APS
A Praetorian Guard; publicly funded private police force

If voters are to hold school board members accountable for their conduct and competence, they must be candidly, forthrightly and honestly informed about that competence and character. The onus rests upon the shoulders of editors and news directors.

It is they who are covering up the cover ups.

It is they who conspire to manipulate the outcome of the February elections.

photos Mark Bralley

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, thefts, and robberies at school, get away with it?

The last audit of their publicly funded private police force found; crime statistics were routinely falsified by administrators trying to create a false public perception.

How does APS Supt Winston Brooks get away with failing to gather statistical evidence of his failure to re-instate the authority of adults and restore order at school?

As far as his school board is concerned, he gets away with it because that is what they expect him to do; protect APS' public perception even if he has to lie about it. Even if he has to hide evidence of felony criminal misconduct by senior APS administrators. The board expects that, individually and collectively.

As for his subordinates and citizen stakeholders, there is his Praetorian Guard, a publicly funded private police force, to keep them in fear of retribution and retaliation should they decide to expose administrative or executive corruption and incompetence.

As for stakeholders, there is a local media that is disinclined to investigate and report upon the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

In fairness, KRQE, link, implied some resistance from "APS" to their efforts to get the statistics they were looking for. They did not identify the pol or board member or public servant who gave them the runaround. Apparently reporter Alex Tomlin had simply asked for their candid, forthright and honest response to a legitimate question; will you show us the statistics you have collected on bullying, and was told she would have to file a formal request. The formal request process allows "APS" to then interject 15 and 30 day delays at will.

She did not ask for, or did not report upon APS' surrender of statistical truth about all criminal behavior on campuses.

Even I was stunned to learn, in order to keep "bullying" down, "APS" has decided, the first time a kid bullies or gets bullied, does not count as "bullying".

The district has a clear definition for bullying,

“Conflict is a one time incident, bullying is something that happens over time and continues to happen.”

He gets away with it by trotting out APS' newest inner circle member Kris Muerer. She will be the flak catcher with regard to his failure in ensure accurate and complete data gathering.

In her report, Tomlin identifies Muerer only as "with APS" and not by her title and standing as their newest senior administrator. I thought that odd.

Meuerer's job is the same job of every senior administrator; solve problems while hiding their extent; to end bullying in the APS while at the same time trying to hide its breadth and depth.

KRQE reports that "APS" admitted they never actually gathered bullying data as such. The data' unexplained combobulation with other data hid bulling data forever. "APS" apparently will not be able to gather bullying data as such, this semester, or the next. "Probably" by next year, maybe.

They do report 1337 incidents. Hell, there were probably that many fistfights posted on YouTube alone.

The district suspects less than half of those 13-hundred reports filed last school year were cases of actual bullying.

If that's true, that would amount to about five cases of bullying per school last year.

Ask a teacher; if they believe there were less than six fights a year, per school, in the APS? Ask a teacher if they went looking, could they find five bullies in one passing period in one hallway?

APS also says there will always be bullying victims that don't come forward, “If you don't know about it you can't do anything about it.”

APS has a rule on data gathering. If you note that you have gathered several years of data, and the trending data makes the administration look corrupt or incompetent, change the way you gather the data. Bullying data will enjoy no exception;

In order to figure out just how big of a problem they are really dealing with the district is changing the way schools report bullying this year. Those reports will now longer be lumped in with assaults.

If data shows increasing incidence; claim better record keeping just makes it seem that way;

They are also tracking the cases closer.

Meuerer offered;

“We don’t report all classroom behavior things because if we did that's all we would be doing reporting all day long.”

Did she, or did she not, just admit a problem so large that even the keeping track of it is problematic? Did she or did she not, just admit to chronic disruption of the educational process?

photos Mark Bralley

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 in the dark about Brooks' contract extensions?

In the Journal's story, link, about another sweet deal having to do with Brooks' state pension, the Journal call's Brooks' golden parachute a "three year rolling contract". What is the difference between a three year rolling contract and a golden parachute. It is fair to wonder how deliberate their decision to not call it what it is; a golden parachute. A safe bet; the language comes from APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta and the effort to improve APS' public perception unrealistically.

When the Journal finally investigates and reports upon Brooks' hiding evidence of felony criminal misconduct by senior APS administrators, he will leave with three quarters of a million dollars, two hundred and fifty thousand more than Couture and equal to the completely reprehensible amount they gave to Michael Locksley.

What makes this all so particularly distasteful is that there is no objective or empirical evidence that Brooks is even a mediocre superintendent, much less the wizard the board would have us believe.

Far from it, Reportedly, he is no more esteemed by the people who work with him than he is by those who work for him.

There is a reason there are no subordinate evaluations of his conduct and competence.

The increases in educational outcomes in the district are statistically irrelevant. He is widely regarded as a misogynist and bully. The number of lawsuits against the district, in which he is a named respondent, is significant.

They are significant anyway, to everyone but his media cronies.

Brooks is not evaluated by anyone but the school board members who hired him, regardless of the conflict of interest it creates.

School board members will tell you they are accountable to voters for their hire's conduct and competence. If they make a bad choice, they can be held accountable in the election a few months distant.

If they admit to Brooks' incompetence and corruption,
they admit to their own as well.

The meetings where the board evaluates Brooks' performance and their own, are conducted in secret from the taxpayers for whom he and they work.

Brooks' and his administration, their standards and accountability, have yet to be evaluated by anyone but themselves. Why?

School Board President Paula Maes has stated it rather flatly, she has no intention ever, of agreeing to any independent audit that individually identifies corrupt or incompetent administrators and board members. And, especially, not Winston Brooks.

Maes is up for re-election February next

photos Mark Bralley