Mounir Lynch is one of the six candidates running for the Columbus City Schools' Board of Education.
On the first week of early voting for the 2025 general election, WOSU is breaking down the policies and positions of each of the six candidates on the ballot for the CCS board.
Three seats are up for election after board members Michael Cole, Ramona Reyes and Christina Vera decided not to run for re-election.
Early voting started Tuesday. The election is on Nov. 4.
Why is Mounir Lynch running for school board?
Lynch is a public health educator with AndHealth and community organizer with Abortion Fund of Ohio. Lynch is also a graduate of Columbus City Schools, earning his diploma from Columbus Alternative High School.
Lynch said he's been advocating for the district since he was a student at CAHS. During school, he said he got a group of friends together to advocate for better conditions at the school on McGuffey Road. He said they struggled with the basics like heat, air conditioning, a pest problem and ceiling tiles falling on their heads.
He said the problems facing CCS go well beyond maintenance at some of the district's aging buildings.
"I think we need bold, brave leadership that's willing to tackle these problems that we're having. We're watching the privatization of public education happening before our eyes. And the way that we've been led as a district over the course of several decades has clearly not worked," Lynch said.
Lynch said student outcomes are not catching up to similar districts in Ohio, like Cincinnati, Cleveland and Dayton. CCS scored two out of five stars on the annual district report card. Dayton scored the same or worse than Columbus in many categories, while Cleveland and Cincinnati received a 2.5 star rating overall.
Lynch said a former student's perspective brings value to his candidacy.
"I have the lived experience of studying in these buildings that are underfunded and hearing directly from my staff and my support staff that I had as a student about how much more support that they need. And that's evident in our everyday experience as students," Lynch said.
Lynch says admin cuts should be prioritized over staff cuts. He says more school closures will unfortunately be necessary.
Lynch said the budget deficit is going to be the "day one" task for all three new board members to address. He said he's already planned meetings with the district's treasurer and staff to make sure he is familiarized with the situation.
Every elected official in area city councils and school boards will join their boards in January, which is often in the middle of ongoing budget negotiations for the next fiscal year.
"We're kind of going to jump into the middle of the first round of those policy proposals. The superintendent has to make her recommendations in November, which is before we come into office, hopefully in January. And so we'll already be in the midst of that work," Lynch said.
Lynch said he is deeply concerned the district will make cuts to staff, because administrative staff focused a lot on that expense when they first outlined the budget situation earlier this year. Personnel make up more than 80% of the district's $1.8 billion budget.
Lynch said he believes trimming administrative positions and salaries should be a priority over staff cuts.
"If we can't cut a lot of those positions, that's something that a new board will really have to debate on," Lynch said. "We could at least wager on salary cuts. We could ask them to take a little bit and give back to the district in that way."
Lynch and the five other candidates said they would have voted against the last round of school closures. The current school board voted to close five school buildings over the next few years.
He said closing more schools will be a very hard decision, but will unfortunately be necessary. He said the full picture of the district should be examined.
"We can't just leave the south side of town without an elementary school. We have to look a lot better at the decisions that we make," Lynch said.
Lynch said he thinks property tax reform is a likely outcome if Republican Vivek Ramaswamy gets elected as the next governor of Ohio.
He said if this happens, the school district can't operate without the state adequately funding public education.
"If they're going to abolish property tax, they need to make sure that they are handling the budget, that they're funding us adequately. And I don't think they plan on doing that either," Lynch said.
Lynch said the next strategy should be to organize on the ground to fight for public schools. He said voters and young people are fighting for public education and the board members should also show up to the Ohio Statehouse to fight.
Lynch said he also sees the argument for property tax relief. He is critical of property tax abatements given by the city to developers and would want them to contribute more.
"I also recognize that people are tired of their property taxes going up, people are experiencing an increasingly unaffordable city here," Lynch said. "I also believe it entails standing up to luxury real estate developers that are making our city more unaffordable, while also not increasing the burden on the taxpayers that we've already trusted with multiple levies in the past."
Lynch wants community to help transport students, expand wraparound services to address chronic absenteeism
To address a high rate of chronic absenteeism in the district at more than 50%, Lynch said he'd like to expand wraparound services for families to address problems at home that may be a barrier to students attending school.
Lynch said as a public health professional he's seen people having a really hard time recovering economically after the COVID-19 pandemic. He said he saw the effect the pandemic had on social and emotional wellbeing for students.
"We have school social workers going to multiple buildings in a day and they need to be established within a community and support those students. We need to work more closely with city government to, again, improve the everyday living conditions of the working person in Columbus, Ohio," Lynch said.
Lynch said students not having a place to go for our kids before school and after school also contributes to the problem.
"(Students) are out here, they're more likely to engage in crime, they're likely to continue to fall behind. If they're not at school, they are not learning," Lynch said. "And so we need to tackle this problem, and it will help us improve student outcomes at the same time."
Lynch said leveraging community partnerships to afford any expense is key.
The CCS board is currently considering cutting high school busing as it considers the budget deficit's impact. The district is considering paying for passes through the Central Ohio Transit Authority to transport high school students who need transportation.
Lynch said because transportation is the second-largest expense of the district behind personnel, it's something that needs to be considered.
As he's knocked on doors during his campaign, Lynch said people have large concerns about transportation.
Lynch said an idea he's proposing is relying on parents that are carpooling their children and helping facilitate that transportation.
"We can do things like mileage reimbursements for them to get our kids to and from school," Lynch said.
Lynch said small actions like this can have a profound impact on the budget.
Lynch said the district's lack of community engagement in large discussions like the school closures and impending budget cuts are a big issue to him.
Lynch also said a key priority of his is making sure that the community is there at the table in the future, not only to guide the decisions, but to help make them. He said he'd like to practice this method on more than just the budget.
"I want to build working groups for various different political topics that our district deals with that are centered on youth and centered on our staff. We can have students at that table in our committees," Lynch said.
Lynch said the district should be more accessible in order to improve how large decisions are made, like another school closure process. He also said the location of meetings needs to change.
"Our meetings take place at the farthest south end of the city of Columbus. And they used to take place in our school buildings. That gave people the opportunity to look at our buildings and our students and staff to contribute to making board meetings happen," Lynch said.
Lynch said public comment time should also be extended and there should be more transparency with the district's consent agenda.
