Emma Jones

🚨EMERGENCY CALL TO ACTION🚨

Albuquerque Public School Board is proposing a policy amendment that would “permanently expel” students - for life - who are in possession of a firearm. This permanent ban would mean a student could never again be allowed to attend or visit an APS school or schools event.

This is one of those policies that is very much rooted in good intensions, but the long term consequences of a policy like this could really be harmful to students. Especially students with disabilities, mental and behavioral health issues, and students of color who are more likely to be targeted by the search and seizure policy that already exists.

Most cases of a student bringing a weapon to school are students with mental and behavioral health problems who are in crisis and who need immediate emergency intervention - not to be expelled from public schools for their entire life.

Instead of pushing students with behavioral health problems out of schools we should work to prevent, intervene, and connect families to support services when their children are dealing with mental and behavioral health issues.

Please call/email board members and ask them to vote NO on this policy change or join us at tonight’s board meeting and sign up to speak during public comment!

You can sign up to speak in person or via Zoom at tonight’s meeting at 5pm here: https://www.aps.edu/about-us/board or you can call or email board members:

All Board staff: [email protected]

District 1: Board President
Yolanda Montoya-Cordova
Phone: (505) 880-3729
Email: [email protected]

District 2: Vice President
Peggy Muller-Aragón
Phone: (505) 880-3729
Email: [email protected]

District 3: Policy Committee Chair
Danielle Gonzales
Phone: (505) 880-3729
Email: [email protected]

District 4: Instruction and Accountability Committee Chair
Barbara Petersen
Phone: (505) 880-3729
Email: [email protected]

District 5: Finance Committee Chair
Crystal Tapia-Romero
Phone: (505) 880-3729
Email: [email protected]

District 6: Capital Outlay, Property, and Technology Chair
Josefina E. Domínguez
Phone: (505) 880-3729
Email: [email protected]

District 7: Secretary
Courtney I. Jackson
Phone: (505) 880-3729
Email: [email protected]

🚨Update on the call to action! 🚨

Apologies in advance for typos. It was a long meeting and wrote these notes in a rush.

All APS board members except Courtney Jackson (district 7) voted to table the parents rights and responsibly policy tonight. The board agreed they would revisit the policy in November after they developed a better process for creating this kind of policy. Almost all Board members agreed that moving forward, the process should include community input, and maybe could even have committee with parents helping to re-write it with cross references to existing policies.

More specifically- Crystal Tapia Romero and Courtney Jackson both said they believe that students should face hard conversations with their families and that parent engagement should be a priory for the district. They both agreed that APS shouldn’t keep information (that isn’t a violation of FERPA) from families. Peggy Muller Aragon said that APS shouldn’t take away rights of parents to parent their children, that parents love their children more than any teachers, Counsilor, or school, but ultimately she said that the policy needed to be rewritten and that the board needed more time to think it through and ask questions. Josefina Dominguez, Yolanda Cordova, Barbara Peterson, and Daniele Gonzales all basically said they believed that as written this policy would cause some level of harm to the community, and needed to be thought through to not be so divisive in language, and to ensure compassion and safety was at the forefront of the intension of the policy.

If you have time to reach out to thank the board member who voted to table the policy, that would be awesome!

Today is the last day of Early Vote! I’ve been working hard every day to reach voters and get my message out across the district! I believe we can win this election thanks to our grassroots support ✊🏽

Our campaign has been knocking and talking to voters since I jumped in the race! It means a lot to have volunteers getting out the vote for me in our district, in the final days and hours!

We have 4 days until Election Day 🗳 We’ll be out every single day. We’d love for you to join us, in whatever way you can show up!

Spread the word, knock, make calls, donate, and most importantly VOTE! Emma4aps.com