Scott Esserman, an at-large candidate for the Denver Public Schools Board of Education, has been paying sitting school board member Tay Anderson — even as a district investigation found that Anderson pursued illicit relationships with underage schoolchildren.
What’s more, Esserman’s campaign is financed by $50,000 in Colorado teachers union contributions, meaning the union is picking up the tab for a sitting school board member.
When Anderson, Colorado’s most infamous Black Lives Matter activist and critical race theory pusher, won his seat in 2019, he had the union’s full support. The Denver Classroom Teachers Association gave his campaign an unprecedented $65,000 even though it was aware of sexual misconduct allegations against Anderson.
Such accusations resurfaced this March, and more followed. The DPS Board of Education launched an independent investigation in April that ended in September, costing nearly $200,000.
According to investigators’ 96-page report, while a school board candidate, Anderson “began to pursue [a 17-year-old] for dates.” He pressured the teenager to go “stargazing or [have] a sleepover at his place with him.” When she rejected him, he insisted: “You’re such a p****. Just come.”
In July 2020, while a sitting board member, Anderson pursued a 16-year-old student in his own district. In one exchange, he asked her, “Do you still stay with family or do you have your own spot?” Anderson said he “immediately ceased communications” after he “learned their age.”
DPS investigators also substantiated that Anderson intimidated witnesses via social media during the investigation. (Previously, while a district employee in 2018, Anderson was reprimanded for violating district policy concerning retaliation using social media.)
As a consequence of the report’s findings, Anderson’s board colleagues voted to censure him on Sept. 17 for “behavior unbecoming a school board member.”
Esserman knows all of this, yet according to state campaign finance records, his campaign has paid Anderson $5,000 for “social media management” through Anderson’s new business, Good Trouble Consulting. GTC was registered with the Colorado secretary of state on Aug. 18. The first payment was made on Aug. 15, before DPS’s investigation was completed. The most recent came on Oct. 12, weeks after the report was released.
According to CBS4-Denver, Anderson claimed he consulted with DPS attorneys beforehand and that they told him this was “not a conflict of interest and complied with guidelines for school board members.” Yet DPS spokesman Will Jones denied that Anderson had consulted district attorneys.
When I broke the Esserman/Anderson story in the Denver Gazette on Friday, it was the first time the public knew of any job-related income Anderson had earned since joining the school board in January 2020. DPS board members are unpaid volunteers, yet Anderson hasn’t held a job. For nearly two years, the public wondered, “Who picks up the tab for Tay Anderson?”
In July 2020, Anderson claimed he was “pushed” by Denver police officers at a protest and required hospital care. His campaign manager, Tiffany Caudill, set up a GoFundMe that raised $13,036 to cover his medical bills. In September 2020, Anderson raised $12,842 in a separate GoFundMe, ostensibly to finance a group trip to Washington, D.C. When Anderson announced he was going to be a father in February 2021, he widely promoted a well-trafficked gift registry.
That’s all anyone knew — until last week’s Esserman revelations. For months, Anderson publicly endorsed and backed Esserman’s candidacy for DPS school board. Now we know Esserman gave Anderson his first job-related income since joining the DPS board — and without publicly disclosing Anderson’s role.
Esserman has also paid thousands to Caudill ($3,500) and Hashim Coates ($11,564.72) to co-manage his campaign. Caudill ran Anderson’s failed 2017 school board campaign and his successful 2019 bid. Now she’s running his 2023 reelection. Coates is a longtime mentor and paid campaign consultant of Anderson’s who viciously defended him throughout the DPS investigation.
With its $50,000 in contributions to Esserman, the teachers union is bankrolling Anderson, a current school board member and alleged serial predator it helped elect with $65,000 in 2019, and two of his closest allies. Meanwhile, the union has remained silent on the findings in the Anderson report.
Denver is but one example of what parents across the country have been learning: Teachers unions will stop at nothing to get their way — even if it means funneling money to shamelessly unethical actors and harming students in the process.
Jimmy Sengenberger is the host of Jimmy at the Crossroads, a web show in partnership with the Washington Examiner that focuses on the intersection of politics and economics, as well as The Jimmy Sengenberger Show on Denver’s News/Talk 710 KNUS.
