������Ƶ

The district’s adopted in 2023 calls for “increasing the number of qualified applicants of color and increasing our number and percentage in hiring staff of color.”

In his letter Wednesday to Superintendent John Simpson, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said the district “is discriminating on the basis of race in direct violation of both state and federal law” and must stop using “race-based preferences and quotas it has adopted for hiring and retention.”

A spokesman for Webster Groves called Bailey’s letter “ridiculous.”

“There is nothing wrong with the stated goal, and it is certainly not unlawful race-based hiring,” said Derek Duncan in a statement. “The Webster Groves School District has not, and will not, discriminate against anyone in hiring based upon the person’s race. However, the District is interested in having a diverse faculty to serve as educators to our diverse student population and is willing to take the effort to attract, support and retain that staff.”

About 22% of Webster Groves’ enrollment is students of color, compared to 11% of teachers. Black students in particular who have at least one Black teacher have better academic and behavioral outcomes, according to longstanding research.

The cease-and-desist letter is the second warning Bailey has sent the district in the last month. Students in Webster Groves were taught sex education lessons without parental notification as required by law, Bailey wrote to Simpson on Jan. 29.

Bailey’s office received reports that students watched “a video presentation that discussed gender identity and sexual orientation” and “in some instances refusing to honor parents’ opt-out decisions.”

The school district’s attorney denied the claims. But students at Edgar Road Elementary School received some lessons in human growth and development in February 2023 before parents were notified, according to a letter obtained by the Post-Dispatch through a public records request.

“We should have communicated with you before the curriculum was introduced to your children and we deeply regret the oversight,” former principal wrote to parents.

Bailey, a Republican who took office in January 2023 after his appointment by Gov. Mike Parson, has made race and gender issues in schools a key focus in his current campaign for attorney general.

Also this week, Bailey chastised Wentzville School District for taking “intimidating and retaliatory action” against three school board members who reported possible open records law violations to his office.

Bailey sued the district in September after board members Jen Olson, David Lewis and Renee Henke provided affidavits alleging board members discussed bathroom policies for transgender students during closed meetings, when Missouri’s open records law requires public deliberations.

In a letter to Superintendent Danielle Tormala on Thursday, Bailey said the school board opened an investigation into the three so-called whistleblowers, and has for the past several months “taken steps to silence them.”

“I believe that the board’s and the district’s ruthless and targeted intimidation campaign is retaliatory in nature ... It must cease immediately,” Bailey wrote.

A spokeswoman for the district said they had no comment on the letter due to the ongoing litigation. And Bailey’s spokeswoman did not respond Wednesday to a request for more specifics on Wentzville’s alleged investigation into the board members.

But in on the Marc Cox Morning Show on KFTK (97.1 FM), Bailey said “entrenched interests” in the district, including the superintendent, board members and “other staff,” were “weaponizing internal personnel disciplinary policy” against the three board members.

“[They’re] using it to intimidate the board members who are whistleblowers to prevent them from participating in the lawsuit,” Bailey said, later adding that discovery for the suit is ongoing.

In his letter, Bailey also indicated there were plans to discipline and potentially remove Olson, Lewis and Henke from office as soon as the school board’s meeting Thursday night. Congressional candidate Bob Onder had claimed on social media Wednesday that Tormala and the board majority planned to censure the three members.

There were no such actions at the meeting Thursday.