Recordings detail who knew about leaked Columbus school closings memo

COLUMBUS, Ohio ( WCMH ) — NBC4 Investigates has obtained audio recordings made by Brandon Simmons, the Columbus City School board member at the center of a leaked memo related to future school closings.

On Monday night, other board members asked Simmons to resign immediately , and they’ve repeatedly denied having anything to do with that memo. Now, recordings obtained by NBC4 Investigates appear to show otherwise.

Publicly, the board has distanced itself from Simmons, but NBC4 Investigates has learned that before this went public, at least two board members were saying something different.

Through a public records request, we received two calls that board member Brandon Simmons secretly recorded, what appears to be a few days before the document was leaked publicly. These calls show prior knowledge of this document.

Listen: Brandon Simmons phone recordings (contains profanity)

One recording is almost 40 minutes long and is between Simmons and board Vice President Tina Pierce. It sounds like Pierce is coaching Simmons on how to respond when the document goes public.

“If you let this all play out, let the public records request go in, everybody has to be honest and say what really happened, and so many things are compromised, you will come out as the victim, because you were trying to be collaborative. You were sharing ideas,” Pierce said in the recorded call.

Board member Sarah Ingles leaked the document after receiving it from board member Jennifer Adair. Both calls show frustration towards Ingles.

“Everybody’s pointing the finger at Brandon, nobody is pointing the finger at Sarah, nobody is pointing the finger at Jennifer. And the only way that that could happen, the fingers get pointed at other people is if you let the story play out,” Pierce said to Simmons.

“Obviously, I shared it with Sarah, but I didn’t know that she was going to do that. And that wasn’t even the context in which we were talking,” Adair said to Simmons.

In the recording, Pierce acknowledges others are involved. Publicly, the board has adamantly denied involvement.

“You were taking ideas from everybody. This was literally a briefing,” Pierce said to Simmons.

In the recorded phone conversation between Simmons and Adair, Adair apologized for sharing the document, saying she did not know Ingles would send it on.

“At this point, I don’t trust any of you,” Adair said to Simmons. “I told her. I said I have been fighting here for five years, trying to get stuff done for our students. And I don’t understand why we as adults can not figure out how to work together in a trusting way.”

Simmons made the recordings and gave them to the Ohio Auditor of State. NBC4 Investigates got them through a public records request. Ohio is a “one-party consent” state, meaning only one person needs to know the call is being recorded.

NBC4 has reached out to Simmons and the district for their comments. Simmons has not provided a response, but the district said, “At this time, no additional comments will be given from the Board of Education.”

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