A Columbus City Schools board member said Thursday that she was responsible for sharing the document with the Columbus Education Association that is now the center of controversy as the board looks to close district schools.
In a Thursday statement where she stressed she was speaking in her personal capacity, Board Member Sarah Ingles said that she was the one who had shared the document with the Columbus Education Association.
The document in question is a draft of a strategy for handling opposition to school closures and was first published Tuesday by the Columbus Education Association, the union representing the district’s over 4,500 educational professionals. In its release, the CEA said the document was racially divisive and called for a pause to the closure process and for Board Member Brandon Simmons to resign.
More: Read the leak: What to know about the document at the center of a Columbus schools scandal
Neither Simmons nor other school board members have returned calls seeking comment. On Tuesday Simmons said in two hastily called press conferences that the document was the product of collaboration with other members and stakeholders.
Ingles said she was not present at any meeting where the document was shared, and that she didn’t know of its existence until it was shared with her. Ingles said “after serious consideration of what was best for the district and our students,” she decided to share the document.
“I was appalled and offended when I read it,” Ingles said in a statement. “Our work in the district is too important for these kinds of divisive and absurd tactics.”
CEA President John Coneglio told The Columbus Dispatch that he commended Ingles for doing the right thing. He said he made it public because he didn’t want the issue swept under the rug.
“Politicians that do the right thing needs support,” Coneglio said. “I’m sure the district would have loved to have handled this internally, but then we would still have these bad actors doing this type of stuff in the future, because nobody knows about it.”
Who is Sarah Ingles?
Ingles is a first-term board member elected in November, with a term expiring in 2027.
Ingles, a Near East Side resident, is currently Democratic legal counsel for the Ohio House of Representatives, and previously worked as a union lawyer. Ingles campaigned on rebuilding trust and relationships with the CEA, The Dispatch previously reported.
CEA: District enacted elements of leaked strategy document
In a Thursday release, the CEA said union legal counsel sent a letter to Columbus City Schools, detailing what it said was evidence that the Board of Education had already enacted parts of the controversial leaked plan.
The letter to the district chiefly points to what it says are irregularities in the seating and agenda and a changed location of the Tuesday board meeting.
The release also points to the widely covered tour of Columbus Alternative High School and Downtown High School, held on Tuesday, May 14. The leaked document details plans for a Tuesday, May 14 press conference “at our oldest and worst most crumbling (sic) building.”
Coneglio said he didn’t believe Simmons acted alone.
“I never think that anybody acts alone,” Coneglio said. “Brandon definitely was part of this process — but I don’t think Brandon was alone.”
More: Who is Brandon Simmons? What to know about CCS board member at center of leak scandal
In her only statement since the release Tuesday, Board President Christina Vera during Tuesday’s board meeeting stated Simmons “was not asked to provide any recommendations and did so independently.”
She also said the strategies outlined in the document “do not represent the perspectives of the Columbus City Schools or the entire Board of Education,” and that “no action has been or will be taken … to implement the board member’s suggestions.”
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus City Schools Board Member Sarah Ingles talks document leak
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