WENTZVILLE — Wentzville School District leaders hired a law firm to investigate potential leaks of confidential information, retaliation and violations of the school board’s code of ethics last year before Superintendent Danielle Tormala’s abrupt resignation and $1 million contract buyout, records show.
The district retained Kansas City-based Spencer Fane to investigate the allegations against the board’s three newest members: Jen Olson, Renee Henke and David Lewis. In all, the district paid Spencer Fane about $100,000 for the investigation, according to the records.
Invoices and the district’s contract with the firm do not identify who filed complaints against the board members, nor do they provide specifics about what confidential information may have been leaked or potential retaliation. They also don’t outline what the investigation found.
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But the records, obtained by the Post-Dispatch through a Sunshine Law request, give more details on the lead-up to Tormala’s sudden departure and context for her buyout. They confirm the district paid a third party to investigate three members of the divided board, as community members had speculated for months. And they provide insight into Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s attempts to intervene in disputes between the superintendent and the three board members.
Olson, Henke and Lewis were among the sharpest critics of Tormala’s tenure. They submitted sworn affidavits alleging the district broke open records laws by discussing a bathroom policy for transgender students in closed meetings. The affidavits led to an ongoing lawsuit filed by Bailey.
In a statement, Olson and Henke said the allegations against them were false. They said board leadership, the prior administration and the district’s former outside counsel “colluded to weaponize board policy against the three of us.â€
“The only individuals that were harassed, intimidated and retaliated against, were Directors Olson and Lewis, and Secretary Henke,†their statement reads. “So much so that the attorney general of the state of Missouri sent a cease-and-desist letter to the prior administration and the remaining board members due to their malicious intimidation and retaliatory acts against us. We remain on the lawful and just side of this issue.â€
Lewis declined to comment on the investigation, saying, “I want to make sure that I don’t cross any closed meeting information lines.â€
When reached by phone on Wednesday, Jason Goodson, Wentzville’s board president at the time of Spencer Fane’s hiring, said he followed protocol in the face of an “unprecedented set of matters.†Goodson, who did not run for reelection and is no longer on the board, declined to comment on the specifics of the investigation.
“As employers, the WSD Board of Education must take any complaints from employees seriously and we must ensure due process and appropriate course of action is taken to ensure we minimize liability to the district and ultimately the taxpayers,†Goodson said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for Bailey’s office did not respond to messages.
Tormala did not respond to a request for comment.
Wentzville spokeswoman Brynne Cramer declined to speak about the investigation, saying the district does not comment on confidential legal and personnel matters.
“As the district transitions, we look forward to the continued opportunity to focus on our students and to provide the best possible learning experience,†she said.
Tormala’s tenure
Tormala resigned April 12 after less than two years as superintendent of Wentzville School District. A year before her resignation, the conservative slate of Olson, Henke and Lewis were elected to the board.
The district agreed to pay $1,027,558 in exchange for Tormala agreeing to drop any current or future claims against the district and school board for “compensatory damages, emotional distress, loss of reputation, humiliation, embarrassment, costs, expenses and attorneys’ fees.â€
Tormala’s tenure was marred by critics who put her on the opposing end of culture war fights in Wentzville. And the district hired Spencer Fane as tensions in the district reached their peak.
For months, parents and meeting attendees sparred with administrators and school board members over a host of issues, ranging from transgender students’ use of bathrooms and locker rooms to elementary-level reading and writing curriculum. Meetings frequently devolved into shouting matches and calls for Tormala’s resignation.
That fall, the board voted to staff a second police officer at meetings as members said they received death threats. Around that time, police said they were requested to patrol outside Tormala’s home because of threats.
On Sept. 28, two days after Bailey filed his lawsuit against the district, Spencer Fane sent Wentzville an engagement letter outlining the investigation’s scope and its hourly fees, which varied from $360 to $495, depending on which of two attorneys on the investigation were on the clock. A revised engagement letter was sent to Goodson in November, and the district paid a $5,000 advance retainer shortly after.
Invoices from Spencer Fane show the investigation involved interviewing board members and witnesses; evaluating “news articles and posts containing closed session informationâ€; analyzing “possible leaks of board confidential informationâ€; traveling to Jefferson City to conduct an interview with a complainant and “her†attorney; and completing an investigative report.
Spencer Fane attorneys finalized its investigative report on Feb. 16, invoices show.
Bailey sent a cease-and-desist letter to Tormala six days later. Also around that time, former state Sen. Bob Onder , formerly Twitter, that he learned of plans that the Wentzville board and “wokester†Tormala planned to censure Olson, Henke and Lewis. The board ultimately did not vote or publicly consider a censure.
In his cease-and-desist letter, Bailey wrote: “I understand that the Wentzville School Board initiated an investigation into the three whistleblowers and, for the past several months, the district or the rest of the board has been taking steps to silence them.â€
In a scathing letter to Bailey, Tormala denied the district would take any action against any person for “engaging in any protected activity under Missouri or federal law.â€
“As you know, misrepresenting fiction as fact to Missouri citizens spreads confusion amongst parents, students, staff and district patrons, and fractures relationships that the district works hard to sustain in our community,†Tormala wrote.
In their statement, Olson and Henke painted the investigation against them as a witch hunt.
They said prior board and district leadership “did not like that we questioned the legality or appropriateness of certain practices, board norms and topics of discussion in closed session.â€
“Many attempts were made to silence us and get us to ‘just let it go,’†Olson and Henke’s statement reads. “However, we instead decided on an alternative route and submitted sworn affidavits pertaining to violations of the Missouri Sunshine law and the attorney general’s office.â€
Tormala’s departure was lamented by parents and area politicians who said the district progressed under her leadership, despite certain stakeholders in the district “incessantly harassing her.â€
But a staunch group of detractors had the opposite view, and they had circulated a petition calling for her dismissal months before her resignation.
“Dr. Tormala has created a hostile environment for the Board and parents within the district. Her behavior is an example of what we do not want for this district or for our students,†reads , which garnered close to 1,400 signatures.
Deputy superintendents Brian Bishop and Jeri LaBrot initially led the district on an interim basis after Tormala’s departure. Last month, the district Bishop would serve as interim superintendent for the upcoming school year.
“Despite everything that has happened in the past 15 months, we are confident that the district will continue to move forward in a positive direction with our new administration,†Olson and Henke said.
Confidential information leaks
The board never publicly discussed why it hired Spencer Fane, one of at least 10 law firms paid by the district in the past nine months.
But mentions of Spencer Fane’s investigation still popped up in public comment sections at school board meetings over the past several months.
“So again I ask: ‘What is $107,000 (sic) being spent on?’†Leigh Palitzch, a former candidate for Wentzville School Board, asked at a March meeting. “Is it investigating our three newest board members?â€
Emails between Tormala and board members, obtained by the Post-Dispatch through a records request, provide insight into what confidential information may have prompted the investigation.
On Sept. 19, a Gmail account called “Wentzville Whistleblower†composed a two-page report outlining the ways they said Tormala and the board had worked to “get rid†of Olson, Henke and Lewis.
The report was written by a person claiming to be a longtime employee of the district and mostly included descriptions of “scuttlebutt around the office†as well as bits of overheard conversations between Tormala and board members.
The writer sent it to City of St. Charles School District board members, Wentzville aldermen and Wentzville’s mayor, who forwarded it to Tormala to inform her of the message.
Also, a month before Spencer Fane was hired, a lengthy post on Facebook from an account named “Patriot Mama Bears†outlined six months of board activity — including details of meetings closed to the public — with the hashtag #FireTormala. Concerned constituents emailed Tormala and board members copies of the timeline, which remains on Facebook.
Patriot Mama Bears claimed the timeline showed retaliation against the three new board members: Olson, Henke and Lewis. It included votes and descriptions of conversations held in closed meetings, sometimes with great detail.
“At this point you could see it in each of their eyes, they couldn’t believe what they were hearing,†reads a description of an Aug. 24 closed session meeting, in which the post claims the three board members were told the complaints against them.
Palitzsch, who was defeated in Wentzville’s school board election in April, emailed a PDF of the Mama Bears timeline to the board, administrators, and local elected officials copied on the email. “WE DO NOT WANT OUR TAX DOLLARS PAYING FOR YOU/DISTRICT TO INVESTIGATE BOARD MEMBERS!†she wrote.
The district’s chief communications officer responded by calling the timeline inaccurate.
“Upon initial review of the ‘detailed account’ you referenced, we acknowledge the sequence of several of the events outlined but dispute the accuracy of many of the details, as they are erroneous or appear to be based on speculation,†Cramer wrote, according to emails obtained through a records request.
Olson’s ties to the Patriot Mama Bears Facebook page have been questioned by Wentzville School District residents and stakeholders since she was elected. Before her election, she was a host of the Patriot Mama Bears radio show, on which schools had been “infiltrated by the Marxist Neo-commies†that are “unapologetically indoctrinating our children.â€
“This ‘timeline’ has info in it that has no other explanation than that it came from either a direct leak of private info OR a directive of what/who to sunshine was shared,†Jenna Roberson, a Democratic candidate for Missouri House, wrote in an email to Olson.
Constituents who wrote to board members about the post did not note that the timeline was copied and pasted from a private Facebook group, in which it was posted anonymously. And about a month before the timeline's posting, the Mama Bears account identified its administrator as Kristen Haftarczyk, who is president of the , a conservative group with a goal to combat "ideological subversion" in schools.
In emails to constituents, Olson repeatedly denied involvement with the page, except for “state and national election-related content†over the summer of 2023.
“But other than that, I have not contributed or participated in any of the other types of content posted since April or before then,†Olson wrote in one response.
This story was updated Tuesday to clarify the origin of the Patriot Mama Bears post.