Three Years, 31 Vendors, and No Way In: Lee County's PE Equipment Bid Needs a Second Look

Lee County schools are told to buy physical education equipment from 31 bid vendors, at a percentage off a catalog the vendor writes. Some schools are told something else. Here is the record. Here is why I think it deserves scrutiny.

By Amber Cebull · October 5, 2026

A Lee County school bookkeeper, asked by a teacher this month whether physical education supplies could be bought somewhere cheaper, wrote back:

Unfortunately, the District is requiring that all sport-related supplies and equipment be purchased through the vendors that were awarded under the bid process. I have raised concerns regarding pricing and the availability of lower-cost options; however, exceptions have not been approved.

The school and the names are withheld. That email is what sent me into the bid documents, and what I found there is a structure I think parents should know about, whether or not it's costing us money.

A PE teacher sent us a second account. She told us that when she asks her bookkeeper to order from Gopher Sport, which she finds expensive but which carries some equipment she needs, she is told Gopher isn't a vendor and that she can order only from big-box stores and Amazon. She says she buys about 90 percent of her items from those places.

Gopher Sport is one of the 31 awarded vendors on the district's bid. Amazon is not on that bid at all. One bookkeeper was told nothing outside the bid is allowed. This teacher's bookkeeper said the opposite.

These accounts were sent to Parents for Transparency. Names and schools are withheld to protect the senders. We have reviewed the bookkeeper's original email and confirmed the teacher's identity.

What the record shows

The bid is Invitation to Bid No. B257505DO, Sports Apparel, Uniforms and Related Equipment. The School Board approved it on August 5, 2025, on the consent agenda, 7 to 0, with no discussion. The district notified 565 companies. Thirty-three submitted bids, two were ruled non-responsive, and all 31 responsive bidders were awarded. The tabulation's closing line reads: "THESE VENDORS PROVIDED THE LOWEST OVERALL COST AND BEST VALUE TO THE DISTRICT."

The Board set a ceiling of $1,700,000 for the first contract year. On July 21, 2026, again on consent, it raised the second-year ceiling to $2,000,000, an increase of 17.6 percent. Both items state the money comes from budgeted School and Department funds, the same per-school allocations that pay for classroom supplies.

The award is not a price. It's a percentage off each vendor's own catalog, and the vendor writes the catalog. Here is what the tabulation shows vendors offered in the Related Equipment category, which covers protective gear, training and game equipment, storage, court and field accessories, and fitness equipment:

In the apparel category, BSN Sports listed its discount as "0% to 35%, varies." Cheerleading Company and Positive Promotions each bid 0 percent. All were awarded.

Same district, different rules

The Board's own records show other doors. Since at least 2018 the Board has approved a piggyback of Prince William County Public Schools Contract No. R-TC-17006, an online marketplace through Amazon Services, LLC, most recently on November 4, 2025, for up to $2,500,000 from budgeted School/Department funds. On April 14, 2026, it approved a $1,000,000 piggyback of a Charlotte County Public Schools catalog discount bid whose scope includes physical education supplies.

If those bids were district-wide, why can some schools save on PE equipment using the lowest viable bid and others cannot?

One school was told sport-related equipment must come from the 31 awarded vendors and that exceptions have not been approved. Another teacher says she buys about 90 percent of her PE items from Amazon and big-box stores, and was told an awarded vendor was not an approved vendor. Both operate under the same bid and the same district procurement rules. A PE teacher should not have to guess which version of the rule their school follows.

Why I think this structure deserves a second look

The district's Procurement Services page says plainly: "The District cannot accept quotes or pricing outside of an established competitive process," and vendor numbers are "only assigned after a company is awarded under a solicitation or an approved cooperative (piggyback) contract." Without a vendor number, a company can't be paid.

Florida's purchasing rule for school districts, Rule 6A-1.012, F.A.C., requires competitive solicitations from three or more sources for purchases "exceeding $50,000." The district could reasonably point out that PE spending across all its schools far exceeds that amount, and that buying item by item could look like splitting purchases to avoid it. That's a fair argument. But in my reading, the rule does not require a school to buy a $40 ball set from a bid vendor. That restriction is the district's own choice, not the state's.

Here's what troubles me. The award runs through August 4, 2028, with three one-year renewals, so the same list could hold until 2031. The district's FAQ says only originally awarded vendors may participate in renewals, and others "must wait for the next competitive solicitation." Of 565 companies notified in spring 2025, 540 did not respond. A business founded after that notice has no ordinary path onto the list for years.

The documented exceptions run through cooperative contracts. In January and September 2025, the Board approved $100,000 piggybacks of OMNIA Partners contracts awarded to Riddell (Contract No. R201102 in January, No. R250102 in September). So the list isn't absolutely sealed, but the door that exists opened for a national vendor, not a local one.

None of this is evidence that anyone broke a rule. I think it's a system problem: a consent-agenda vote with no discussion can lock a district into one roster of sellers for six years, in a market where new companies appear constantly.

Who owns the biggest names

The remaining awarded vendors are largely Southwest Florida printing, embroidery, promotional and trophy businesses.

In January 2026, Sportico reported that Moody's rated a Varsity Brands financing of a roughly $2.4 billion loan plus a $400 million add-on, and called it credit negative in the near term because it would raise interest expense by about $28 million. Varsity Brands and Bain Capital agreed in 2024 to pay $82.5 million to settle a class action alleging monopolization of cheerleading competitions, camps and apparel; a year earlier the company paid $43.5 million to settle a similar suit. Neither settlement included an admission of wrongdoing, and neither involved Lee County.

I don't think leveraged ownership is wrongdoing. I do think it's worth knowing that when a school buys a set of playground balls, the catalog price may be set by a company carrying billions in debt.

What the record does not show

• How much any school has actually paid. The Board approves a ceiling, not a spend, and the district publishes no check register or vendor payment file.
• What discount BSN Sports actually applied on any order, since its bid says the discount varies by quote.
• Which Gopher items were excluded as "Only from Gopher" and sold at full catalog.
• Any purchase under the state threshold, which is every PE order. None reaches the Board.
• Who issued the directive that schools may not buy elsewhere, or how many exceptions have been requested and denied.
• Why the purchasing rule a school is given differs from one school to the next, and who decides.

Nothing here shows that Lee County schools overpaid for anything. That gap is exactly why we've requested, under Chapter 119, the purchase-order detail for every order charged to the three physical education account codes from July 2023 forward, the quotes behind each BSN Sports order, the directive itself, and every exception request and its answer. Two prior fiscal years are included so the district's own data can show what the same items cost before schools were restricted to the awarded list.

When those records arrive, we'll publish what they say, whichever way they cut.

Documents

Primary document: Bid Tabulation, ITB No. B257505DO, 15 pages, School District of Lee County

Board record: Award of ITB No. B257505DO, August 5, 2025, consent item K.2, $1,700,000

Board record: Second-year expenditure, July 21, 2026, consent item L.2, $2,000,000

Board record: Piggyback of OMNIA Partners R201102 (Riddell), January 7, 2025, consent item J.1, $100,000

Board record: Piggyback of OMNIA Partners R250102 (Riddell), September 9, 2025, consent item L.1, $100,000

District policy: Procurement Services FAQ

Ownership: KKR Completes Acquisition of Varsity Brands from Bain Capital and Charlesbank, June 26, 2024

Ownership: Sportico, January 22, 2026: Varsity Brands' $2.4 billion loan and $400 million add-on

Litigation: Sportico: Varsity Cheerleading, Bain Agree to $82.5 Million Antitrust Settlement

Ownership: Baird deal record: Riddell, a Fenway Partners portfolio company, $400 million from BC Partners, April 2024

State rule: Rule 6A-1.012, F.A.C., purchasing policies for school districts

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