Those Who Scream The Loudest...
How four Talawanda school-board members exposed their own malfeasance.
By now, you know that those who scream the loudest, have the most to hide.
Case in point, the April 17th 2025 Talawanda City School District board meeting in Oxford, Ohio.
Within this meeting you will both see and hear from a school district that is desperate to deflect from their own wrong-doing, negligence and illegality, specifically regarding their open system of their Google Workspace, specifically Google Calendar.
The meeting began, like they all do across America, where the school board uses their own employees and sycophants to gaslight the public and make the school district look as if everything is fine, when it obviously isn’t.
Below is the entire board meeting, but, below this first video I will specifically timestamp sections that are worth hearing. However, if you want to sit through the whole thing, I highly recommend it. Simply ask yourself one question; Who sounds guilty?
The individuals at the table, are as follows, (from left to right): Superintendent Edward Theroux, board members (Matt Wyatt, Pat Meade, President Rebecca Howard, Chris Otto, Dawn King), and Treasurer Shauna Tefalski.
In this first clip below, I’ll show you the public comments section. This took place after employee reports to the board and other self-congratulatory business.
Scott King (husband of board member Dawn King) was the first to speak, followed be me, and others, of whom you will easily be able to tell who is knowledgeable on this matter and who is not. The sheer contrast in knowledge among the speakers, is astounding. Those in the know, know; while those who do not know what is happening here, still make their way up to the microphone in an attempt to scapegoat board member Dawn King, while making themselves look foolish at the same time. Time-stamp: 52:56.
The staunch differences between the knowledgeable and the unknowledgeable, is beyond glaring.
Between the public comments section and the final remarks from the board members, President Rebecca Howard goes through some updates regarding district policies, one of which deals with how parents or employees are to contact the board members. President Rebecca Howard states that if an employee has a concern, then they should go through the chain of command (i.e., building principal first), however if they are emailing as a parent, then they can email the board members, but they will be asked if they contacted their chain of command first, while the board members themselves would most likely not respond.
This begs the question; Who do school-board members want the public to contact when they have an open Google Calendar that shows private employee meetings and private student documentation (IEP’s and 504’s) within the district? How about any other flaws that may exist within their technological systems? Are there other flaws within their technological systems? Perhaps time will tell.
In the next clip, of which I suggest you listen to all the way until the end, you will hear from the board members themselves. It starts with board-member Dawn King who makes her statement, laying out the events. Then, board-member Matt Wyatt speaks in response. Matt Wyatt calls the people who question him, the superintendent and the board, as “trifling people,” “half-wits” and “fools.”
Now, I don’t think I have to preface this, but this is very revealing. Just listen and you will see where this is going. Remember, ask yourself, who sounds guilty? After all, those who scream the loudest…
Timestamp: 1:54:16.
It should be clear at this point as to who the negligent parties are. Notice how the other board members use the word “distract” with regularity? Did you also notice how they keep saying that “children are hurt as a result of this?”
No children were hurt as a result of this. In fact, by bringing this negligence to light, it’s designed to protect the private information of minors and other employees. Remember the definitions of psychological projection, scapegoating and blame-shifting?
Not only did the other board members (not Dawn King) sound completely hysterical, but they actually voted to censure board-member Dawn King for negligence and illegality that parents actually exposed, which was actually the Superintendent’s and other board member’s negligence! Four members of the Talawanda school board actually voted to double-down on their own fraud and cover-up!
I had a feeling they would do this, and I’m glad they did. It’s actually an admission through action that they have everything to hide, and instead of fixing the problem, they’ve done nothing but continue to cover-up their own involvement. The other board members also refuse to acknowledge their own policy, which board member Dawn King clearly knows, followed, and repeated to them in her written and oral statement.
Talawanda School District (Oxford, Ohio) Staff Technology Acceptable Use Policy;
"The Southwest Ohio Computer Association and Board (school board) has a right to all material stored on the network which are accessible to others.Section K: The Board and SWOCA reserve the right to monitor any system or network information and activity to assure compliance with applicable policies, procedures, and rules.”
8320.01 - Personal Information Systems; "The Superintendent is directly responsible for the operation of the PI System, including preparing and implementing rules that provide for the operation of the information system."
8351 - Security Breach of Confidential Databases; "Unauthorized access of information will not be considered a security breach if:
A. the employee or agent acted in good faith in accessing the data;
B. the access was related to the activities of the District or the employee's or agent's job-related duties; and
C. the employee or agent did not use the personal information for an unlawful purpose or subject the information to further unauthorized disclosure.
Now, I’m theorizing here, but, let me ask this question. What if Superintendent Edward Theroux and or the school-board members (before Dawn King’s arrival), purposefully kept the districts Google Calendar open to monitor and surveil the employees of the district?
Superintendent Edward Theroux came to the district as an unknown, to be a superintendent for the first time. Could there be an advantage for a superintendent to monitor those around him and below him, along with keeping tabs on what they’re doing and saying to each other? The same goes for the school-board members. What if the school-board members (before Dawn King’s arrival) used the open Google Calendars to monitor the documents, meetings and whereabouts of employees? By doing so, the Superintendent or board members could anticipate any difficulties that may seek to undermine administrative control.
This is clearly an administrative competence issue. A close review of the technological systems that exist in the district should have been the first move of the superintendent, along with the I.T. Director, and or a representative from the software company. Or, you simply get on YouTube and look up a video on how to privatize the entire system. This was clearly not done.
Then, when it was brought to the attention of the board in the December 19th, 2024 board meeting, the first order of business should have been to shut down and privatize any and all calendars, while also eliminating old emails from past students who no longer attended the district. None of this was done. Had it been done the moment Edward Theroux came to be the Superintendent, this would have been noticed and or fixed immediately. Once Scotty King brought this to the public’s attention, you now have an administrative crisis-management issue. In fact, the board members and the superintendent should have invited Scotty King into a meeting for him to show the district board members and the superintendent what was going on. Did they even do that? No. Therefore the administrative response was panic and deflection; not fixing the problem and thanking those who found the flaw.
Let me give you this example. If there is a fire in a school building, does it matter who tells you that there is a huge fire? Or, does it matter that you ask where the fire is and how do we stop it?
Months earlier, board member Dawn King found a security flaw in Bogan Elementary School regarding their emergency alert system. The emergency button in the main office did not alert the Sheriff’s office like it was designed to do. When Dawn King brought this to the board’s attention in a school-board meeting (after it was fixed), instead of saying; “Thank you Dawn, we had no idea, we’re glad it’s fixed now;” the Superintendent Ed Theroux called her a liar, and then the board sought to blame her for making a “private issue” public. The other board members actually believed that by making that problem (that was now fixed), public, was actually putting people and students in harm’s way. When in fact, if the emergency system didn’t work, and there was an actual emergency, who’s fault would it be that the emergency system didn’t work? Even the Sheriff’s office themselves said that the emergency system didn’t work.
Superintendent Edward Theroux was simply trying to distract the community from knowing that he has the sole responsibility to make sure that all technological systems are private and student information is private. His response alone, to the breached privacy of all employees and minors, clearly showed how he manages such a situation as a manager. Superintendent Edward Theroux and the school-board’s approach was to add an accelerant to the fire, instead of extinguishing it. The fact that every board member was all in agreement against Dawn King, is a direct admission that they all are attempting to hide their collective guilt. Scapegoating was their only plan of attack.
The board’s behavior and the yelling they engaged in when addressing the crowd in this board meeting (denial, displacement and explosive reactions), sought to take the attention off of Superintendent Ed Theroux and themselves as being the ones who are solely responsible for making sure the technological system of their Google Workplace and Google Calendar are secure. At no point did they apologize. At no point did they accept responsibility. Instead, they decided to censure board-member Dawn King for actually doing her job, based on both law and the district’s own technology policy, and by doing so they admittedly verified their own participation in their own cover-up.
Again, the solution here was simple. Thank the King’s (or don’t), but, apologize for the oversight, accept blame, and then fix it. But, that didn’t happen.
The only thing that has caused this to drag on past the date of December 19th, 2024, is that superintendent Edward Theroux and four school-board members attempted to deflect from their inability to accept responsibility for making private school-related information and student’s documentation public, instead of private. Not to mention, the reason that parents who discovered the district’s open Google Workspace and Calendar system only brought the issue to Scotty King (husband of board member Dawn King), was due to them knowing that the superintendent and the other board members would target students and parents in this process and blame them for their own malfeasance. As it turns out, that’s exactly what happened, even when parents brought it to the King’s attention alone.
In the end, Superintendent Edward Theroux and school-board members Matt Wyatt, Pat Meade, President Rebecca Howard and Chris Otto simply got caught.
After all, as the saying goes; when everyone’s thinking alike, someone’s not thinking.
BIO: Dr. Sean M. Brooks is the host of the podcast American Education FM and the author of several books including; The Unmasking of American Schools: The Sanctioned Abuse of Americas Teachers and Students. He’s also on Gab, Truth, X, Bitchute, Rumble and everywhere audio podcasts can be heard.