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 said 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.
Valentino was associate superintendent/chief academic officer in the San Francisco Unified School District from July 2012 to June 30.
He was an employee in good standing, and the district is not conducting an inquiry about his hiring practices while in San Francisco, said Gentle Blythe, a school district spokeswoman.
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