Tech Exec’s Interest in Lindbergh School Board Raises Concerns

The conservative outrage express is barreling hard toward the school board governing the Lindbergh School District, courtesy of a political action committee run by Martin Bennet, a Des Peres man who is the regional manager of an Internet services company that markets to schools.

Direct mail flyers began appearing in the mailboxes of Lindbergh voters last week that were paid for by the St. Louis County Family Association Political Action Committee, which Bennett launched in January.

The flyers promote the candidacies of David Randelman and David Kirschner, who are among the four candidates vying for the two seats on the eight-member board at stake in the April 2 election. Randelman and Kirschner are running on platforms demanding improved test scores and greater fiscal responsibility.

The flyers attack diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs supposedly being overseen in the Lindbergh School District. 

The flyers define DEI as driven by a “huge need to re-educate our white students” and to “make social justice and anti-racism a priority in the district.”

The flyers also claim that the district’s “emphasis on equity was not transparent” and that “academic rigor has declined in the district.”

The St. Louis County Family Association Political Action Committee has so far raised nearly $20,000 in cash — with $10,000 of that sum coming in cash from Bennet, according to Missouri Ethics Commission records.

In addition, Bennet made an $11,279 in-kind contribution to the political action committee, according to the latest MEC report.

Bennet is the regional manager for Common Goal Systems, of Elmhurst, Illinois, an Internet learning company that markets a wide range of services to public and private schools.

The SLCF PAC has so far spent $6,122 on direct mail, plus $1,939.74 each on the candidacies of Randelman and Kirschner — by far the biggest donations each man has reported receiving, MEC reports show.

In addition, Bennet has made $900 in in-kind contributions to Randelman and Kirschner, MEC records show.

Megan Fennell, the mother of two Lindbergh students, raises concerns about the divisive tone of the flyers. But her biggest issue is the potential financial conflict of interest involving Bennet, his company and any business dealings CGS might bring before the Lindbergh School Board.

“The financial gain is my concern,” Fennell says of Bennet. “That a corporation is trying to buy seats on the board."

Fennell says she’s tried to contact Bennet, Randelman and Kirschner to express her concerns, but none of the three men responded to her questions.

“The silence is pretty aggressive,” she says. “Something’s up, but I don’t know what it is.”

Bennet declines to answer a reporter’s list of emailed questions.

“We are pretty tied up for several weeks due to the election, business schedules, and personal events,” Bennet responds by email. “But, thank you for reaching out and we appreciate our area's journalists!”

The SLCF PAC is connected to St. Louis County Family Association, a nonprofit group led by Bennet that has attacked DEI programs across St. Louis County, with a special emphasis on the Kirkwood, Ladue, Mehlville, Rockwood, Lindbergh, Parkway and Webster Groves school districts. The latter three districts were the sites of candidate forums the group sponsored last year.

The Family Association’s website is a veritable theme park of right-wing culture war issues, with topics including “Gender and Political Indoctrination” and the “Sexualization of Children.”

Bennet also started the group Tax Fairly, which fought against a 2020 Kirkwood School District bond issue.

Bennet, in his email, suggested that the RFT review a series of websites his organization has set up dealing with the alleged academic decline in Lindbergh and other school districts and informing parents about “changes to gender.”

Randelman and Kirschner also declined to answer the RFT’s questions.

“Thank you for reaching out to me,” wrote Randelman, 45, an IT professional. “At this time I am extremely busy as we are in the last two weeks of the campaign and work. Perhaps we can catch up after the election, if it is still relevant?”

Kirschner, 62, a retired oil company researcher and former Saint Louis University geology professor, wrote in an email, “I am somewhat surprised that the River Front Times is seeking to write an article so late in the election process…Given my focus on being elected, I will make myself available to you after the election, but not before.”

The other two Lindbergh School Board candidates — Rachel Braaf Koehler and Megan Vedder — have raised $2,737 and $1,994, respectively. Koehler and Vedder have received endorsements from the Lindbergh branch of the National Education Association. 

Andrew Tolch, a Lindbergh parent who lives in Randelman’s neighborhood, says it “seems a little sketchy” that Bennet would use a political action committee he had set up to support the school board candidacies “of a different school district from where he’s at. That’s definitely one concern.”

But Tolch’s primary concern is Bennet’s potential financial stake in the April 2 election’s outcome.

“If your biggest donor is trying to sell your school district resources,” Tolch says, “we got a conflict of interest there.”