There was A LOT that happened with Darbi Boddy from April through summer up to the beginning of the school year. It was a bit much to cover on here, but if you have been watching the news, you have probably at least caught bits and pieces. Here’s a “brief” summary of some of the most egregious things that Mrs. Boddy has been up to this spring and over the summer.
Board Work Session
In a board work session meeting at the end of April, Darbi wanted to have a closing comment and also discuss the curriculum audit. As work session meetings are typically focused on one specific subject and don’t include closing comments from board members she was cut off – this one was focused on the five year forecast. She was visibly irritated, spoke over the other board members adjourning the session by reading something that had been pre-written. She was later seen storming out of the board meeting and did not mince words with some of her fellow board members. Most of the confusion appears to stem from the fact that she is a new board member who refused to go to the training offered by Ohio School Board Association.
The Porn
Shortly thereafter she posted a long Facebook post on her public board member campaign page – which has been her main point of communication with her constituents – where she complained about this meeting. She then went into a rant on sex ed curriculum specifically – and ended up linking to pornography. It turns out that was an accident, but instead of apologizing for the accident, she doubled down and said she was glad she posted the pornography, and implied that pornography is being taught in Lakota as well as around the country.
The Lakota Board of Education called an emergency meeting shortly thereafter and censured Ms. Boddy and asked her to resign. She refused, calling it a political ruse. The vote calling for her to resign was unanimous. Even her running mate, Isaac Adi, and board president, Lynda O’Connor, who coached Adi and Boddy during the election called for her resignation. All of this became international news. See the following news coverage:
Local News:
- Local12 – School board member under fire after linking to pornographic site on Facebook post
- WLWT – School board member called to resign after saying she accidentally posted link to pornographic site in social post
- WCAX(Burlington, VT) – Ohio school board member’s typo puts porn link in pro-abstinence Facebook post
- Associated Press – School board member censured for ‘typo’ linking to porn site
- Daily Mail (UK) – Ohio local school board censures member who ‘accidentally linked a PORN site on her campaign’s Facebook page’ instead of a link to a site about sexual education for teens
Trepassing and Pictures
On May 4th, Mrs. Boddy decided to ignore policy and forced her way into multiple schools for a “surprise investigation”, which is not in the job description of school board members. Here’s the letter that was sent emailed from the district:
The Cincinnati Enquirer obtained the photos from this records request, which you can see a montage of below. In general they were mostly just photos of rainbows – from elementary art projects, and autism awareness, to stickers on teachers’ doors, with a few pictures of civil rights timeline projects. Public schools must accept all students and in general, these pictures tend to show an environment where all students are welcomed – something any school should strive for.
Darbi posted many times on her Facebook page defending her right to break policy and wander around schools taking pictures to conduct an investigation. One thing she made crystal clear in her posts was that she did NOT take any pictures of students. A student who had her picture taken by Mrs. Boddy, apparently because Mrs. Boddy thought there was a dress code violation, came forward to the news. Eventually video surveillance footage was released of the incident. Darbi continued to say that she didn’t lie, while also admitting that she took a picture of the student. She said “I would not say that I lied. I was taking a — I was observing the environment and I saw a violation of a policy and it is my duty as a board member to document that and that’s exactly what I did. I will also say I deleted it because it was not a very clear picture. It was not catching the dress code violation from the angle I had seen it, and, so it was actually deleted.”
Continued Disruption At Board Meetings
During board meetings since then, Mrs. Boddy has continued to push divisive and unnecessary policies. There are publicly viewable policy meetings where the board discusses what policies should be brought forward to be voted on. In 2022, for the most part, Lakota Schools are operating without treating COVID-19 any different from any other viruses at this point. Mrs. Boddy, however, has continued to push a policy that has been covered on this website before. She is not using the normal policy process since no other board members see the need for it. At the most recent regular board meeting, she called for a vote on this policy as a resolution for the FIFTH time. She also brought forward a policy on regulating transgender participation in sports even though that’s really the purview of individual school districts – there are already policies from the OHSAA that cover, and there is pending state legislation on this. On top of that, this is not an issue affecting any children in Lakota – there are zero students who would be affected by her policy in Lakota, and approximately 14 out of over 400,000 high school athletes in Ohio – or 0.0035% of students. For these reasons all of the other board members passed on bringing this policy forward as well, but Darbi forced a vote on this as a resolution as well.