Superintendent resigns from Kan. school district after allegations of sexual harassment, touching

Comanche County school board president Kelly Herd addresses board members during a Sept. 3, 2025, meeting in which the district’s superintendent was placed on paid leave  pending an investigation into his alleged sexual harassment of a student. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector) — Comanche County school board president Kelly Herd addresses board members during a Sept. 3, 2025, meeting in which the district’s superintendent was placed on paid leave pending an investigation into his alleged sexual harassment of a student. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — Ty Theurer resigned Monday as superintendent of Comanche County schools amid public outrage over allegations he sexually harassed and inappropriately touched a student.

School board member Dean Yoder confirmed the board accepted Theurer’s resignation at a special meeting and named Michael Baldwin as the interim superintendent.

Baldwin previously served as superintendent and was given a two-year deal, Yoder said.

“Everyone’s familiar with him, and it just kind of a calming aspect to maybe put everyone at a little bit of ease now and move forward,” Yoder said.

Comanche County School District Superintendent Ty Theurer, photographed with the 2019 graduating class at South Central High School in Coldwater, is under investigation for alleged sexual harassment of a student. He was serving as golf coach this spring, according to the student’s complaint, when he told her to hold golf clubs as if she was grasping a penis. (Comanche County School District)

Earlier this month, Kansas Reflector reported on Theurer’s behavior during the spring semester in his capacity as the South Central High School golf coach. Theurer admitted in a signed statement, obtained by Kansas Reflector, that he told a girl to grip a club like a penis and that he had held the back of her thigh, hips, waist and shoulder — purportedly to improve her golf posture.

Theurer, who faced additional allegations from other students, stepped down as golf coach but remained as district superintendent. School board president Kelly Herd and others tried to protect Theurer, despite law enforcement and Title IX investigations.

Kansas Reflector reported that Herd tried to quash community backlash by refusing to let a parent speak about the allegations at a school board meeting and by instructing other board members that they should stay quiet on the subject. Yoder was an outlier among board members in voicing his concerns.

On Sept. 3, a day after Kansas Reflector published its investigative report, more than 100 community members packed a school board meeting in the small, southwest Kansas town of Coldwater and loudly criticized the board’s handling of the students’ complaints. The board placed Theurer on paid administrative leave during that meeting.

Several weeks later, on Sept. 21, 10 bullets were fired into Herd’s unoccupied vehicle while it was parked in front of her home.

Yoder said 10-15 people attended the school board’s special meeting Monday night. He wouldn’t talk about the details of Theurer’s resignation, which the board discussed during a closed session.

What happens next?

“Healing,” Yoder said. “We try and earn the community’s trust back. I’m not sure we can do it, but we’re trying to get their trust back.”