Current Talawanda High School counselor Scott Davie will take over as the school’s principal for the 2022-2023 school year, the district announced Feb. 17 on its blog. 

Davie, a Talawanda employee for seven years, succeeds retiring Principal Tom York.  

Along with being a school counselor, Davie is also district department chairperson for the school counselors, and the head coach of girls’ golf, girls’ softball and boys’ basketball. 

While he plans on resigning from his coaching positions to focus on his new administrative role, Davie said he is looking forward to working collaboratively with staff, students and the community to further enhance what he believes is an already great community and school system. 

“I think there’s always ways to do things better and identifying those and moving things forward is an exciting part of the job,” Davie said. 

York is a 1969 graduate of Talawanda and has been the high school principal for almost 10 years. Prior to that, he was superintendent at Edgewood Schools.

In a 2021 profile, York talked of developing a culture of community at Talawanda using his motto, “relationships before tasks,” used on all his social media posts and emails as #RelationshipsB4Tasks. 

Davie said that he wants to ensure those relationships continue and that THS is helping people graduate with the skills they need to thrive. 

“That’s really how we’re measured is, ‘are we producing graduates who are ready for whatever is next for them?’” Davie said. “Whether it’s the world of work, college, trade schools, military, we want to produce graduates who are ready to do those things, and we’re doing a really good job of that already.”

Becoming principal of THS will not be Davie’s first administrative role, as he served as the principal of Titusville Middle School in Titusville, Pennsylvania. 

According to the Talawanda district blog post, Davie is known for his strong communication skills and is attentive to details without losing sight of the big picture. The post also said that Davie has a concern for the betterment of the lives of the students of THS, and he is excited about continuing to promote educational excellence in the classroom while focusing on both instructional and organizational leadership. 

“The Talawanda way is not a broken way,” Davie said. “We’re really just looking to continue the great things we’re doing and seek ways to improve on those, but we don’t feel like we need any sort of major overhauls.”