Political uncertainty looms over Talawanda board meeting; routine contract renewal hits snag

At the first Talawanda Board of Education meeting since President Donald Trump’s inauguration and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s executive budget proposal, uncertainty over the district’s future dominated discussion.

While DeWine’s executive budget is just a proposal and could see significant changes as the state legislature modifies it in the coming months, his retooling of a key funding guarantee could have major implications for Talawanda. Board members and the public also raised concerns about everything from the potential elimination of the Department of Education to state laws that will impact LGBTQ students and how the district will respond if ICE agents show up on school property.

Administrators also presented data showing improvement in performance for both Talawanda High School and the district’s special education during the Feb. 6 meeting. Several administrators’ contracts were also up for renewal, and one board member singled out the director of student services to vote against her contract, though the rest of the board passed it.

Immigration enforcement and budgetary concerns

Multiple people at the Feb. 6 board meeting raised concerns about House Bill 8, an Ohio bill signed into law last December dubbed the “Parents’ Bill of Rights” by its supporters and a “Don’t Say Gay” bill by its opponents.

The bill — which passed with support from almost all Republicans and no Democrats in the state legislature — mandates religious release time for school districts and requires teachers to report any changes to a student’s “mental, emotional or physical health or well-being” to parents. Under the bill’s definition, that includes requests “to identify as a gender that does not align with the student’s biological sex.” While the bill doesn’t explicitly address sexual orientation, it describes its definition of well-being as a “minimum.”

Under the new law, districts will have to create a new policy by July 1 which allows parents to review “any instructional material that includes sexuality content.” Districts must also ensure that “sexuality content” is age-appropriate and not included in instruction to students in kindergarten through third grade.

The bill also requires districts to create policies allowing students to be released for religious instruction time, a requirement which board member Matt Wyatt, the district’s legislative liaison, described as mandating the mixing of religion and education. “In short,” Wyatt said, “public schools must release our students for … Sunday school during instructional time.”

Megan Kuykendoll, a parent in the district, said disclosure requirements will place LGBTQ students at increased risk. She also condemned Senate Bill 104, a law passed last November which requires transgender and nonbinary students to use the restroom corresponding to their gender assigned at birth. The law applies to both K-12 schools and higher education institutions.

Beyond safety, Kuykendoll said these policies will create a less welcoming environment that could negatively impact educational outcomes for the district as a whole.

“These [bills] are very concerning to so many of us as parents and community members,” Kuykendoll said. “It should not be any school policy to take action that will threaten the safety of a student by sharing information with their nonaffirming families.”

Kuykendoll called on the board and administrators to focus on student safety and create clear guidance for how to respond if immigration officials come to Talawanda buildings. President Trump campaigned on a promise of “mass deportations” and announced in the first days of his presidency that he would end a decade-old policy which had prevented federal immigration agencies from making arrests at schools, churches and hospitals.

At the end of the meeting, Theroux said he and other district administrators had met with lawyers, school resource officers, local law enforcement, bus drivers and other school districts in the past few weeks to address changing immigration policy. The district has “plans in place” in case ICE officials show up to a building to detain children, he said.

While the district must follow court-ordered warrants but doesn’t necessarily have to comply with administrative warrants, Theroux said. ICE agents would be brought to building administrators if they come on school property, Theroux said.

“We have some steps that we can take, even on the buses, even at the bus stops and even in the buildings,” Theroux said. “Now, President Trump has made it easier for law enforcement like ICE agents to come. We will still act on behalf of the student’s representative, and if we have to get our lawyers involved, we will.”

District staff “have never and will never” ask for documentation records, Theroux added, unless it becomes state or federal law. He advised that parents check their emergency cards and update who has the right to pick up children in the school district.

President Trump has also discussed his intention to close the federal Department of Education. While the Associated Press reports that the power to allocate funding to departments or shut them down entirely lies with Congress, not the president, last week Trump said he wants his education secretary nominee, former WWE CEO and Small Business Administration head Linda McMahon, to “put herself out of a job.”

The impact of closing the department could be catastrophic for local districts like Talawanda, Wyatt said at the board meeting. Title I, which helps fund school districts with high poverty rates, funding for students with disabilities, Pell Grants and federal student loans could all be impacted, Wyatt said.

“In my opinion, all of these proposals in one way or another [are] a direct threat to the health, wealth and safety of our children, to our schools and to our families,” Wyatt said. He called on parents and students to reach out to their state legislators to speak in support of public education funding, which is in flux during Ohio’s current budget cycle.

Board member votes against renewing administrator’s contract

During a routine vote to extend several administrator’s contracts, board member Dawn King requested to table discussion of the contract for Stephanie Aerni, director of student services, and ultimately voted against renewing Aerni’s contract. The three other board members present voted to renew the contract, and board president Rebecca Howard was absent.

King said she “had a few questions” but was “not allowed according to board counsel to ask them at this time” and had to “wait for something to finish up.” Board member Chris Otto he was unaware of King’s conversation with the board counsel and asked if anyone else knew of the discussion. King said the counsel had asked her not to talk about it.

While King attempted to table the discussion, Treasurer Shaunna Tafelski said the motion came at the wrong time, so the vote to renew the contract had to continue.

King did not respond to a request for comment after the meeting. Aerni declined to comment.

In late 2024, the district concluded an investigation into a Dec. 1, 2023 altercation involving King, her husband Scotty King, Tafelski, board member Pat Meade and Superintendent Ed Theroux. The Oxford Free Press obtained the 82-page final report on the incident. Aerni and Terri Hesselbrock were each present near the incident and provided witness statements after the fact.

The incident occurred during what was supposed to be a tour of the district’s facilities as Dawn King transitioned into her role as a board member. She had asked Theroux to keep Meade from attending the tour but brought her husband because she “didn’t believe for a second” that Theroux would do so. Meade had previously made disparaging remarks about King, according to the report.

As the tour began outside the Nelson Morrow Building, Theroux said Scotty King could not tour school buildings where he didn’t have a student. Scotty King said that “someone has to leave” when Meade showed up, according to a summary of an interview with King conducted during the investigation. King told the investigator he believed Meade would return if they both left.

Multiple people involved in the situation described it as “escalating” until the Kings left, and the tour did not take place. Aerni and Hesselbrock were inside the Nelson Morrow Building during the incident and provided statements summarizing what they saw and heard afterward.

In her statement, Aerni reported that she “heard elevated voices” and “Mr. King’s voice and Dr. Theroux arguing loudly.” Scotty King alleged after the incident that Theroux had “backhandedly” asked for witness statements and “‘fed’ the witnesses information,” according to the report.

The final report found no evidence that the witness statements were “unduly influenced” by Theroux or Meade. Aerni reported that Theroux had asked her for a statement, while Hesselbrock reported being asked by Aerni herself, but neither Aerni nor Hesselbrook reported speaking with others “about the contents of their statements or what to write.” The investigators concluded that the differing styles and at times conflicting information also discredited the idea that they were “fed information.”

“As with any event that witnesses write statements for, each account will be slightly different because witnesses perceive the event differently or recall it differently when writing it down,” the report states.

Earlier in the Feb. 6 meeting, Aerni presented an update on Talawanda’s special education initiatives in the past year and highlighted district improvement during the Feb. 6 board meeting. Each year, the district gets both a special education rating and a profile from the school district describing compliance with state requirements, and the district received a 3.86/4 rating this year.

Talawanda met 11 of the 12 indicators it was measured on this year, compared to falling short on three indicators last year. The indicator missed this year was on postsecondary outcomes, but Aerni said there is no recommended corrective action at this time.

One of the indicators Talawanda met this year was for suspension and expulsion rates. Aerni said enough districts fell short of that indicator this year that the state changed its formula to calculate it, but Talawanda would have met it either way.

“I’m very proud that even with higher levels of what they’re measuring up against, we still met all of our indicators, and I’m very proud of my entire department,” Aerni said at the meeting.

Aerni is one of three administrators and five current and former board members named as defendants in an ongoing federal lawsuit. The case, filed by two Talawanda parents, alleges that the district created an environment that allowed for former middle school teacher Paul Stiver to sexually assault their daughter and acted with “deliberate indifference” following the incident.

The case timeline was amended last November extending the deadline for case discovery and follow-up motions to Oct. 20, 2025.

“I’m really glad to be voting on this contract,” Meade said later when Aerni’s contract came up for a vote. “Your presentation today showed what a good job you’re doing.”

Editor’s note: Stephanie Aerni is a member of the Board of Directors for the Oxford Free Press. Board members do not oversee content and are not permitted to review stories prior to publication.