February 1, 2010

Cincinnati NAACP

Media Release

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Catherine Ingram has served on the Cincinnati School Board from 1993-2010 for a total of 17 years.  Each year she has been elected to the School Board she has communicated to the African American community that the financial numbers posted on the CPS website were accurate.  The Cincinnati NAACP and the Cincinnati community now knows that was a lie.   Catherine Ingram never requested over the last five years an independent audit of the financial reports related to building Cincinnati Public Schools.  However, School Board Member Ingram serves as Chair of Finance.  "All of the financial corruption and exclusion of African Americans from contracts has happened under Ingram's leadership as President of the Board, Vice President of the Board, and Finance Chair for the Board.  There is no School Board Member who holds greater responsibility for this problem than Ingram,"  Christopher Smitherman President of the Cincinnati NAACP says. 

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The Cincinnati NAACP is a private organization.  "You would think that a School Board Member having served for 17 years would spend more time focused on solutions," Smitherman says.  The Cincinnati NAACP is concerned that Ingram is running the finances of the entire Cincinnati Public School system with the same lack of oversight.  Maybe this is why children do not have books in Cincinnati Public Schools to take home.  Maybe this is why African American children are failing out of Cincinnati Public Schools.  "This is why the Cincinnati NAACP will review its position closely on supporting a 2010 school levy.  Our African American men and women under her leadership have suffered high levels of unnecessary unemployment.  I thought that school board member Ingram would have done the honorable thing this morning which is resign," Smitherman says.   

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