Bothast resigns from Talawanda board, citing 'personal attacks'; district plans to fill vacancy

Editor’s note: Portions of this article were previously published in a breaking news story posted to the Oxford Free Press website on Sept. 9. This article contains additional reporting and appeared in the Sept. 13 print edition of the Free Press.

David Bothast, a member of the Talawanda School District Board of Education since 2021, has resigned.

"I resigned due to the excessive and increasing targeting of my 14 year old," Bothast wrote in an email to the Oxford Free Press. "At first I thought it was bearable, but it's costing my family thousands of dollars to defend against completely false allegations."

According to a public notice posted on the district blog, the resignation was effective Sept. 9.

"Mr. Bothast has been a staunch advocate for our students, our staff, our schools, and our community, and has brought professionalism, insight, and a highly valued perspective to his work as a board member," the notice reads.

Dueling accusations of harassment, misconduct

Bothast’s resignation comes after a summer of tension during Talawanda’s board meetings and beyond.

At a meeting July 9, Bothast said he and his family have faced harassment since he first ran for his position in 2021, pushing him to contemplate resignation. "I am physically and emotionally done with the vitriol and the abuse that my family and myself has endured since the launch of my campaign," Bothast said during the meeting.

At the same meeting, Scotty King, husband of current board member Dawn King, accused Bothast of violating the First Amendment by blocking him on Facebook.

Scotty King also read from an email sent by Bothast to Michael Malone, human resources director, regarding an administrator who has since left the district. In the unredacted portion of the email which King read from, Bothast wrote that “there seems to be a pattern of failing to lead and protect the most vulnerable students” and referenced “100 signatures.” “For several years now, too many aggressors have been unchecked,” King read from Bothast’s email. King did not provide context for the email during the meeting.

Bothast said later at the meeting that he sent the email as a parent concerned about "the things that were happening to my son and the things that weren't happening as a result of us reaching out." The email, Bothast said, was being used as leverage against him and his family.

In an interview with the Oxford Free Press, King said he read the email to demonstrate what he called Bothast’s abuse of his position to influence school staff. King rejected allegations that he has bullied or harassed Bothast and his family. If people are going after Bothast’s child, King said, “it’s not me.”

“I’m going after information,” King said. “I’m not going after anybody’s kid. I’ve never mentioned his name. I’ve never said it … I have a lot of information, but I’m not sharing that. It’s not about that. It’s more about the abuse of power.”

At least one Oxford resident has been explicit about involving Bothast’s child in the current discussion. Sean Brooks, a podcast host, made several claims regarding Bothast’s child which the Free Press has not verified in a July episode of his podcast. Brooks did not use Bothast’s son’s name.

At one point in the podcast, Brooks stated that the process to "get rid of these people" like Bothast on school boards involves different strategies. "You can engage in personal attacks," Brooks says on the podcast. "That's 100% fine. That's divide and conquer, and I'm all for it. I'm all for it — the gloves come off. Again, if they bring a knife, you bring a machete. If they bring a pistol, you bring a bazooka."

Brooks adds that King needs to "keep going after these people" to make Bothast unemployable. He states that he and King know one another and that Brooks would be willing to "go for the jugular" during a public meeting, particularly if he gets access to police records regarding Bothast’s son. "I have no problem destroying David Bothast's son in the middle of a board meeting," Brooks said.

Brooks claimed during the podcast that Bothast had made ethical violations regarding favoritism by trying to protect his child from consequences related to behavior at school. “He’s engaging in ethics violations that should cost him his position and his teaching license,” Brooks said.

The Free Press has reached out to Brooks.

Bothast’s resignation

In Bothast’s resignation letter, posted by the district and separately obtained by the Free Press through a records request, Bothast wrote that he felt the personal attacks were connected to attempts to "unseat the current superintendent," Ed Theroux. The district has spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees since January because of the attacks, Bothast wrote.

"I cannot be complicit in such wasteful spending, nor the emotional toll it has taken on my family or the entire community," Bothast wrote in his resignation. "... With someone so blinded by hate having access to sensitive student information and apparently willing to leverage said information for personal gain, every Talawanda family (and any teacher who crosses her/them) should feel at risk."

Bothast wrote that he wishes the district the best, but that he cannot "continue the fight."

"One aggressor even suggested I commit suicide," Bothast wrote. "Suicide. Over a school board role. I became a teacher to support and protect children. Now I must protect my own."

The Free Press has reached out to each of the remaining board members for comment. Chris Otto and Dawn King did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication. Rebecca Howard declined to comment.

Pat Meade, who has served on the board since 2018 and was its president for two years, said he was “shocked and saddened” by Bothast’s decision to resign. After Bothast’s comments at the July meeting, Meade said he thought Bothast would finish his current term.

“Someone who chose to become a school board member and get elected by the citizens to be a school board member, to serve the children of the community, in my opinion, was hounded out of the job,” Meade said. “[Bothast] was put in a position where he felt he needed to resign in order to protect his child.”

Bothast’s time on the board

After winning his seat in 2021, Bothast told the Oxford Observer that everyone during the campaign was focused on the wellbeing of Talawanda students. "“Now I hope we can put the campaign aside and start working; start working on bringing the district together and on the issues we need to solve," Bothast told the Observer at the time. "At the end of the day, we are all Brave.”

In his three years on the board, Bothast was involved in a wide range of decisions, particularly regarding the district's finances. After a levy failed to pass in 2022, the board voted on a series of budget cuts to generate $5.3 million in savings over three years. The district later got an influx of funding because of a property tax reappraisal. Based on the results of a survey sent to parents and staff in spring 2024, Bothast voted against returning to a busing system that would provide transportation to more students and change the school start times.

Bothast served as the board's legislative liaison, providing updates on local, state and national laws that might impact K-12 education.

What happens now?

Now that Bothast has resigned, members of the board and the district will have to navigate how to move forward.

Matt Lykins, co-president of the Talawanda Educators Association, said the time and energy it will take to replace Bothast will detract from the board’s focus on education. David Annable, the other co-president, said the district’s reputation was “becoming one for board discussion and paranoia” at the August meeting.

“Now, the board is going to spend time doing this, and we need them crafting policy and taking care of students, staff and stakeholders,” Lykins said.

When the district has problems, Lykins said, “the buck stops” with the board. The time spent on personal allegations in the past few months has impacted the morale of teachers within the district.

“It causes consternation, and it causes a lack of trust,” Lykins said. “It causes fear, especially when you see a person like David Bothast, when we see a person on the board that is essentially bullied into quitting, then what it ends up doing is making it so other people don’t feel like they can stand up and say their piece.”

Lykins said Bothast’s resignation for the district is a loss, but the process of finding a replacement could be a time for the board to reset.

“This will be an opportunity to hopefully get another person on the board who perhaps will bring an amount of perspective to the situation that could definitely help,” Lykins said. “So in that regard, I think that might be a positive.”

King said he plans to continue attending board meetings and using his three minutes to discuss the issues he has uncovered through his records requests.

“I’m just gonna keep reading public records requests,” King said. “I’m not making anything up. Everything I’m stating is just what’s in a public records request, and they’re facts … All I’m doing is making people aware of what’s being said, and I’ll do it again.”

For Meade, he said he views the current situation as a “manufactured circus,” and a cultural change would take community support.

“I think the community has got to stand up and say, ‘We’ve had enough. This is not acceptable to us at Talawanda, and you need to stop it,” Meade said. “Then that’s their choice to be normal, civil members of a community that disagree about issues and don’t personalize things and don’t bring hatred into it.”

State and district regulations detail the process to fill a vacant school board position.

According to the Ohio School Boards Association, school boards must act to fill vacancies within 30 days at its "next regular or special meeting." If the board fails to fill the vacancy within that time, it falls to the county's probate court.

Talawanda's policy manual states that the board must "seek qualified and interested candidates from the community" through news outlets, word of mouth and other organizations. Applicants must then indicate their interest in writing to the board president, and the board may then interview interested candidates. A majority of the remaining board members can then vote to choose the new member.

Talawanda will send applications to interested residents beginning on Sept. 17. Anyone looking for more detail can reach out to human resources director Michael Malone, director of human resources, at malonem@talawanda.org to request an application, according to a public notice from the district. Applications will be due 5 p.m. Sept. 24, and the board will hold a special meeting in late September or early October.