New Mexico Investigates School's Hiring of Sex Abuse Suspect
ALBUQUERQUE,
N.M. — New Mexico's attorney general said Monday he will investigate
how the state's largest school district hired a high-level administrator
who faces child sex abuse charges in Colorado.
The district's new superintendent, meanwhile, faces increasing pressure to resign over the debacle.
Attorney
General Hector Balderas announced his office will look into why
Albuquerque Public Schools' safety protocols were dismissed and former
deputy superintendent Jason Martinez was hired in June before a
background check was completed.
Superintendent Luis Valentino hired Martinez to head the district's instruction and technology division.
Martinez
resigned abruptly last week. It later surfaced that he faces four
felony counts of sexual assault on a child in Colorado involving two
victims. Two previous counts have been dismissed, according to the
Denver District Attorney's Office.
A
lawyer for Karen Rudys, the district's interim assistant superintendent
for human resources, said Valentino was informed multiple times about
Martinez refusing to complete his background check but ignored those
concerns.
"This
was a horrific breach of trust for the parents of APS," Balderas told
The Associated Press on Monday. He stopped short of saying if his office
would seek criminal charges, but he said the office will see if the
district conducted necessary criminal background checks on other
employees.
Valentino
was selected for the superintendent post in June, and the school board
plans to vote Thursday on whether he should be dismissed...
The
Denver Post reported Martinez won a districtwide award in 2011 for
helping design The Digital Door Project, which gathers data for teachers
and principals, including individual student data, to help improve
standardized test scores...
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