MUDSLINGING IN ROCKWOOD'S SCHOOL BOARD ELECTION LEADS TO AN INQUIRY FROM A FEDERAL INVESTIGATOR AND QUESTIONS ABOUT TRANSPARENCY

"If these candidates void of integrity are voted in, people will move out of the district and property values will plummet."

That comment came from Denise Cadigan, wife of Rockwood School Board candidate Bob Cadigan, and band teacher at Wildwood Middle School. 

It's one of several lines in a lengthy post she wrote Saturday on her personal Facebook page, that disparages Bob Cadigan's opponents and at the same time boasts about how honorable Bob is.

But, that comment is not the part of Cadigan's post that most troubled opposing candidate Trisha Katzfey. Instead, it was this line:

"Those spouting this nonsense are the same people who...take $40k from the GOP to fuel their campaign."

That's a serious allegation. If it was true, it could ruin Katzfey's career. Katzfey told us that she is prohibited from accepting such donations, as a candidate. She is an Active Guard Reserve of the Missouri National Guard and still works full time there. 

Trisha Katzfey, Rockwood
School Board candidate

Three days after Cadigan's post, an attorney/investigator with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel contacted Katzfey.

The investigator wrote: 

"We received an allegation that you violated the Hatch Act while campaigning  for Rockwood Board of Education."

The Hatch act limits certain activities of federal employees, including accepting donations as alleged by Cadigan.

From a federal investigator to Trisha Katzfey,
after what Denise Cadigan wrote.

The GOP donation claim is false and easily verified as such by checking Katzfey's publicly available campaign finance report. The report shows a little over $2,000 total in donations from individuals. The campaign finance reports for the other candidates showed none of them received donations from the GOP, either.

Katzfey says she was able to clear her name. 

The claim was also knocked down as false by the chair of the Republican Central Committee of St. Louis County, and led some on social media to say the false claim should disqualify Bob Cadigan from being a candidate.

It is not known who contacted the investigator and made the official allegation. The Hatch Act is not something with which most civilians are familiar. 

But, opponent Bob Cadigan might be. He also has a military background. Both he and his wife have repeatedly referenced Bob's "moral compass," earned while attending West Point. 

Both he and his wife posted that false allegation about the $40 thousand in donations from the GOP.

Facebook post of Denise Cadigan

Denise Cadigan post continued.

School Board candidate Bob Cadigan shared Denise's post
on his campaign page on Facebook.

MORE SWIPES RAISE QUESTIONS ABOUT TRANSPARENCY

The post that both Bob and Denise Cadigan shared on Facebook went on to also question the intelligence of his opponents and also their integrity for questioning Bob's RNEA endorsement. 

RNEA is Rockwood National Education Association, an affiliate of the larger NEA. Rockwood's school board votes whether to approve the contract the RNEA has with the district.

The RNEA endorsement has drawn attention because Bob is married to an RNEA member (Denise), who is also a district teacher, and, until March 14th, was also the RNEA building representative at the school where she teaches.

Denise did not mention her connection to the RNEA in her Facebook post, when refuting the conflict of interest issue. She stated in the post that there is "zero" conflict of interest. And, Bob Cadigan did not mention Denise's RNEA connection during candidate forums when stating that he is married to a teacher. (Not all Rockwood teachers are in the RNEA, so saying she's a teacher would not indicate any connection.) 

Note: Denise was still the RNEA building representative during the League of Women voters candidate forum held March 1st.

Denise called her documented connection to the RNEA "misinformation" when she messaged an acquaintance to ask her to help dispel said misinformation and stated "I am not the building rep for RNEA." According to information Cadigan later supplied when pressed, she had stepped down as building representative 2 days prior, on March 14th.

The acquaintance shared the communication with us out of concern for what looked like a deliberate lack of transparency and another attempt to discredit her husband's opponents.

Denise Cadigan's resignation March 14th as RNEA building representative,
2 weeks after the League of Women Voters forum

BACHERT, TOO

Cadigan and his wife aren't the only Rockwood candidates to post about their opponents. 

Jason Bachert, husband of Kary Bachert, wrote a lengthy post on his personal Facebook page March 12th that accused "others" of slander and defamation because of a flyer reportedly being distributed. 

The flyer points out Kary Bachert's RNEA endorsement and her previous Facebook profile picture. That picture includes a fist that is often associated with Black Lives Matter. For more on that, see our previous post. 

It's worth noting that both Bob Cadigan and Kary Bachert have newspaper ads that don't mention their RNEA endorsements, a departure from previous campaigns, when candidates proudly displayed it.

MORE ATTACKING: MAP SCORES

Questions about integrity and transparency also rose after another post from Bob Cadigan on his campaign page that said candidates who say there's been a decline in MAP scores are "wrong." 

From a post on Cadigan's Facebook campaign page

When a parent posted the link from this site that shows the declines, he doubled down and then deleted their conversation. Screenshots of the deleted conversation can be seen on Nextdoor, an app (application) that is widely used in the Rockwood community.

WHAT'S THE REAL DEAL WITH THE MAP SCORES?
For clarity on MAP scores, note: due to a disclaimer from the state that the score data shouldn't be compared from year to year, some have taken the disclaimer to mean that there aren't actually declines. (The state is Missouri's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, or DESE).

Both Rockwood administrators and DESE, (the source of the data and the disclaimer) acknowledge that the data does show that the percentage of Rockwood students that scored proficient or above on standardized MAP tests has dropped. 

The DESE disclaimer exists because of changes in the test and other variables, which can make it difficult to compare the data from year to year and identify the reasons for the drops. 

When we spoke to people in the data department at DESE they told us, regardless of the state's disclaimer about comparing one year to the next, the data still reflects the way students performed, each year, with the way the state tested them.

MORE ON THE RNEA CONTROVERSY

If Bachert and Cadigan are distancing themselves from the RNEA endorsement, it may be because conservative voters shy away from any connection to the NEA, which is the national organization that promotes controversial policies in schools, related to race and gender.

The RNEA publicly announced on its website who it has endorsed. Under the "why join" tab it also explains its connection to the NEA. It states that members follow the long mission of the NEA. 

The candidates' stances on how schools should handle race and gender identity was loosely discussed in a forum that is summarized here.