Why the LEDE Program Should Matter to the CCS Board

By Ronda Watson Barber
OhioMBE Publisher

Columbus City Schools is at a crossroads, and the elected Board of Education is preparing to make decisions that will disrupt families across the district. Teenagers will be pushed onto public transportation. School buildings may close. Staff cuts are on the horizon. The Board is asking the community to absorb enormous change — yet it continues to ignore the basic operational failures happening inside CCS.

One of the clearest examples is the condition of the LEDE program. The initiative was created to give small, local, minority- and women-owned businesses fair access to CCS contracting opportunities. Instead, it has been left in disrepair. Vendor guides are outdated. Application materials contain errors. The vendor website remains wrong months after I publicly raised concerns. CCS distributed materials at an outreach event that did not match its own public records response. These are not inconveniences — they are signs of a system that is not being managed.

And this matters now more than ever.
The same neighborhoods that will feel the impact of school closures and staff reductions are the neighborhoods the LEDE program was built to support. When the program is broken, economic opportunity is taken away from families already carrying the weight of budget cuts, reduced services, and instability.

The Board has not answered the essential question:
If the district cannot maintain accurate vendor information — a basic administrative responsibility — how can families trust it to manage school closures, transportation changes, and staffing reductions with any degree of competence?

At a recent meeting, the superintendent said, “people’s livelihood is at stake.” That is true.
But livelihoods are also at stake when CCS gives vendors misinformation, ignores corrections, and fails to notify businesses about opportunities they are eligible for. These are real losses — for real families — caused by preventable administrative failures.

The condition of the LEDE program is not a side issue. It is a reflection of the district’s leadership, priorities, and capacity. It tells the public whether CCS can operate with accuracy and fairness — or whether it is simply asking the community to trust decisions that are not supported by sound internal practices.

The Board is demanding sacrifice from parents, students, and staff. It cannot continue to overlook the harm caused when it fails to uphold its own standards.

People’s livelihoods are at stake.
The district acknowledged it.
Now the Board must act like it understands what that truly means.

just my thoughts…rwb