OLD FORGE — Old Forge School Board members voted 5-3 to remove Frank Scavo as board president Thursday, just days after The Times-Tribune wrote about the Republican's anti-Muslim Facebook posts.

Also at the special meeting, four directors called for his resignation from the board entirely. Scavo said he will not step down and directors cannot force him from the position since he is an elected official.

"The public record will speak to political bullying," Scavo said.

Former board Vice President Jenna Jones Shotwell, who replaced Scavo as president, said the posts on his personal Facebook — which portrayed Muslims as terrorists, pedophiles or rapists — violate a "district core value" to embrace diversity and accept all district students and members of the community.

The newspaper reported on Scavo's Facebook posts in an article published March 1. He has taken down his Facebook page and called the posts "stupid," "all in poor taste without a doubt" and "too general."

Scavo will be on the ballot Tuesday for the vacant 114th state House District seat left open after Rep. Sid Michaels Kavulich died in October.

He said Thursday's school board meeting made for "great political theater."

As newly appointed president, Shotwell hopes to bring the fiercely divided board together. For more than a year, board members have screamed at each other, argued over almost everything and rarely vote unanimously.

Shotwell, along with Directors Brian Guida, who participated by phone, Alisha Hudak and Marie Ciuferri, asked Scavo to resign from the board and voted for removing him as president. Director Christopher Thomas, who also voted to remove Scavo as president, abstained from asking Scavo to resign from the board since directors do not have the authority to remove a member. He asked to "censure" Scavo instead.

Directors Patrick Aulisio and Joan Wilk voted for Scavo to remain president and voted against asking for his resignation. Board Secretary Megan McCabe was absent from Thursday's meeting because of a work engagement.

Hudak replaced Shotwell as vice president.

At the meeting Thursday, Scavo again apologized for the insensitive posts.

Scavo also called out Thomas, whose resignation he asked for in August, for not apologizing to taxpayers, students and district employees after the paper published reports about Thomas using a district-issued iPad to download porn and solicit prostitutes when he was a district employee. Thomas, a former principal, was fired as a teacher in March 2017 and later awarded a secret $130,000 settlement.

Scavo voted to fire Thomas in March 2017 and voted for Thomas's settlement in July 2017 to avoid a long and costly legal battle over his firing.

The newspaper revealed the details that led to Thomas's firing and the July settlement.

"Those allegations are here and gone and I stood for election and won," said Thomas, who elected to the board in December 2017.

"I'll be here as long as Mr. Thomas is," Scavo replied.

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