A board of education located between Toledo and Cleveland in rural Huron County threatened not to renew an award-winning choir director’s contract because he is engaged to a transgender man.
South Central Local Schools Board of Education members resigned throughout the controversy around Alexander Kuhn, the 5th-12th grade choir director. By the time contract renewals ended, over half of the school board consisted of temporary replacement positions. Members ultimately let Kuhn’s contract automatically renew.
Throughout the year, community members were signing two petitions: one calling for the board to not renew Kuhn’s contract, and another petition defending Kuhn and asking the Board to renew his contract.
According to emails obtained by The Buckeye Flame through an open records request, the teachers union warned board members that they violated the teachers’ collective bargaining agreement by letting public commenters talk about Kuhn’s employment during board meetings. Another record showed a board member seeming amicable to one resident’s suggestion that the board should remove the choir program altogether to eliminate Kuhn’s position and avoid formally firing him.
Background
Kuhn earned his master’s degree in 2023 from Bowling Green State University. He held a choir director position for a year before applying for the position at South Central. Superintendent Ben Chaffee and others in the hiring committee believed him to be the best fit for the job and recommended him to the Board of Education.
According to records retrieved by The Buckeye Flame from Kuhn’s previous employment, he did not have any performance-related issues.
On March 18, 2024, the board approved his hiring. Attendees opposed the board’s decision at the following regular meeting on April 15.
According to the meeting minutes, resident Clifford Smith said that Kuhn’s values were inconsistent with the values of the community and district. Hiring him was “unacceptable to students, and we, the district, and the community can’t allow this to take root and snowball.”
Another speaker, Tom Rhine, said a lack of “strong morals” and “weak leaders” are the reasons behind the increase in youth suicides, and believed the board may have violated “due process” in their unanimous approval of Kuhn’s contract.
Before Kuhn started teaching, the same comments were made during the regular meeting on August 19. According to the minutes, Tom Lucha, the board president, “addressed the folks in attendance,” then resigned, effective immediately, and left the meeting. Megan Culler, a parent in the district, said Lucha talked about no longer feeling safe or supported, but would continue to support South Central’s schools and programs.
Clifford Smith sent a text message to the board members with a screenshot of a Facebook post Kuhn shared. The screenshot showed the music festival Sonic Temple promoting a Limp Bizkit performance.
“It’s Limp Bizkit fu*kin up your town,” the post read.
A former board member, Gene Lamoreaux, emailed Chaffee and said Kuhn’s relationship was immoral.
“We want our personnel to be of high moral character,” he said. “How can we say Mr. Kuhn fits into that category when he intends to marry a woman who is transitioning to be a male?”
Lamoreaux recommended that the board not renew Kuhn’s contract because of his queer identity. Chaffee said that he and the Board cannot discriminate against employees.
Another resident suggested a different method to remove Kuhn. According to screenshots, “Steve S.” texted Board Member John Whitright and said the board should get rid of the choir program altogether to “eliminate that teacher issue without legal issues.”
The school district’s FOIA coordinator could not verify the identity of Steve S.
“Eliminate that program to add a shop program? Just something we’ve talked about,” he said. “I know they eliminated [vocational agriculture] years ago and brought it right back to remove a teacher from his position.”
“Yes if numbers drop low enough then we could possibly drop the class,” Whitright replied.
According to records obtained by The Buckeye Flame through an open records request, Steve S. sent Board Member John Whitright a text suggesting that the Board of Education eliminate the choir program to “eliminate that teacher issue without legal issues.”
Whitright did not respond to The Buckeye Flame’s request to clarify his comments.
But while Kuhn’s personal life was being scrutinized by the public, he directed an award-winning cohort of choir students. His efforts helped the class bring home the highest possible grade from the Ohio Music Education Association’s state choral competition later that year.
On March 5, Chaffee received a cease-and-desist from the Ohio Education Association, which claimed that the Board was allowing people during public comment to complain about a specific staff member. According to board policy, the board must stop any comments that single out a bargaining member and refer the speaker to the superintendent per their collective bargaining agreement.
Instead, labor consultant Mick Bates said in an email to the district administration, comments were made “with the consent and apparently blessing of the Board.”
“This surprised me, as the complaints were only about non-teaching matters that have nothing to do with this employee’s professionalism or teaching ability,” Bates said.
In a meeting with Kuhn and the school’s union president, Chaffee said any public comment was specifically directed towards the hiring process.
Board member Don Englet said that the cease-and-desist made him “embarrassed and [feel] like a jerk.” A statement from the Board in October asking the community to bring any further discussions about Kuhn to the superintendent “has obviously had no effect,” he said.
“My personal ignorance of this portion of the [collective bargaining agreement] is no excuse, nor should it be,” Englet said. He wasn’t sure how the Board could “handle the folks we can reasonably expect to show up from now on.”
Before the Board’s meeting on March 17, Board Member Randy Hord resigned.
Petitions
Chiara Powell, who graduated from the district in 2019, created a petition on March 26 asking the board to support Kuhn. It received over 1,000 signatures online.
“[Kuhn] has both demonstrated exceptional musical prowess and built strong connections with students, is facing unjust prejudice due to his sexual orientation,” the petition reads. “By signing this petition, we stand in solidarity with our valued choir director and demonstrate to educational institutions that prejudice has no place within their staff.”
As a parent with a child in the school district, Megan Culler said she took an interest in what was happening. She took up the charge to not only defend Kuhn, but educate others in the district who were not sure why Kuhn was being targeted.
“After realizing that it wasn’t going to go away, I figured if nobody else was gonna speak up, it ought to be me,” Culler said.
She sent in open records requests to try to see if there was something more to Kuhn’s possible removal because the controversy seemed “really silly.”
Parents and community members approached Culler to ask what she found, she said. They thought that there had to be something more to Kuhn’s removal regarding his performance, not just that he is intending to marry a transgender man.
But there was not. “It’s black and white,” Culler said. “Blatant discrimination is what it is.”
Powell’s petition wasn’t the only one circulating. There was a physical petition in opposition of Kuhn, which gathered around 200 signatures, though Culler said the petition was never submitted.
The contract renewal
By the time the Board of Education was considering contract renewals, meetings were more often taking place in one of the gymnasiums instead of the school library to accommodate for space.
On April 21, the Board of Education gathered for a regular meeting to approve the superintendent’s recommendation to renew contracts for the 2025-2026 school year. Usually, the contracts are grouped together and renewed. That night, teaching contracts including Kuhn’s were instead addressed individually.
All recommendations were approved – except for Kuhn’s. His contract had two yes votes from Board President Jason Putt and Englet. John Beverage and Whitright abstained. Hamman was the only no vote. The superintendent’s recommendation failed.
After one more action item, Englet said that he would resign from the Board, effective immediately, and left the meeting.
Despite the motion failing, the Board’s vote only rejected the superintendent’s recommendation to renew the contract – they did not vote to reject the contract.
On May 20, Kuhn’s contract was included in a list of supplemental contracts. They were all renewed by the Board in a unanimous vote.
Though the vote was “anti-climactic,” Culler said she breathed a sigh of relief. Board meetings soon returned to the library. The Board was interacting with community members more.
But, she said, the situation wasn’t over. Kuhn doesn’t hold a permanent position with the district, and the controversy could stir up again during next year’s contract considerations.
Though Board members didn’t speak on the issue, Culler said she interpreted the initial denial and later renewal as disapproval of Kuhn’s marriage.
She stressed the importance of people showing up to Board meetings.
“There’s a lot of things that go on at these meetings,” she said. “It’s good to keep tabs on what’s going on in your school, for better or worse.”
Both Superintendent Chaffee and Kuhn did not respond to The Buckeye Flame’s interview requests.
Chaffee said in other emails to community members that he hoped the community would support Kuhn.
“The students that interviewed with him [for the job] rally around him,” he said. “The staff that is in charge of the musical rally around him.”
“My hope is that the community will also rally around him.” 🔥
IGNITE ACTION
- If you are a young LGBTQ+ person in crisis, please contact the Trevor Project: 866-4-U-Trevor.
- If you are an transgender adult in need of immediate help, contact the National Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860
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