La Cueva Flier Misstep Poor Decision-making

What were they thinking? Or were they? At best, the mandatory distribution of campaign fliers by members of the La Cueva boys soccer teams for the Democratic Party candidate in Northeast Heights Senate District 21 is a case of failure to think things through.

Coach Kevin Driggs required players to distribute fliers for state Sen. Lisa Curtis as a “community service project.” In exchange Curtis planned to pay the team $500, which the team would have given to a charity.

Curtis is a first-term state senator who was appointed to the seat last year after former Republican Sen. Kent Cravens resigned.

Driggs, who as a contract coach is not an APS employee, did not check with the La Cueva principal or anyone else in authority about his decision to turn his players into partisan political foot soldiers — regardless of their personal political leaning. He now faces disciplinary action.

Curtis says she was just trying to help a school in her district earn some money for a project and wasn’t using her position as senator to pressure the coach into helping her campaign. She said she and Driggs had good intentions.

Her Republican opponent, Mark Moores, and some parents see it differently. So does APS. Spokeswoman Monica Armenta called the forced campaigning “absolutely unacceptable,” and Superintendent Winston Brooks, who apologized to Moores, said the team could not accept the payment and issued a memo to staff reaffirming district policies prohibiting such conduct.

While Curtis and Driggs may have had good intentions, they failed to see the obvious: requiring students to participate in political activity has no place in public schools — not in a civics class and not by school-sanctioned sports teams.

Brooks’ action was swift and appropriate.