Beaufort County school board to review hiring practices in special executive session Monday

The meeting will include a public comment session.

Board chairman Bill Evans said he decided to call the 5 p.m. meeting, along with vice chairwoman Mary Cordray and secretary Laura Bush, in response to "the significant input that we are getting from the public about our practices."

The board met on Tuesday but did not publicly discuss the recent hiring of the superintendent's wife, Darlene Moss, a decision that has sparked anger and ridicule from some residents.

Darlene Moss began serving Monday in a newly restructured administrative position overseen by Dereck Rhoads, chief instructional services officer.

Two board members have spoken out against the circumstances of her hiring, while three others say it was appropriate. The remaining six have refused to take a public stance.

Superintendent Jeff Moss has maintained he acted ethically and did not play a role in hiring Darlene Moss aside from helping restructure the job and approving Rhoads' recommendation.

On Friday afternoon, district spokesman Jim Foster sent an email authored by Jeff Moss to all district employees referencing media coverage and stating, "I also understand how much time and energy it is consuming. Before you depart for the weekend, I want to reiterate that our focus should be on the students we serve."

Moss asked staff members to make up their own minds concerning his character and integrity.

"These continuing distractions are being generated by outside sources that are saying and reporting things that are not always factual. ..." Moss wrote. "We will weather this storm together."

The school board's announcement Friday came just four minutes after Moss' email to the district employees and a few hours after an online petition calling on the superintendent's resignation reached 100 signatures.

So far, no board members have called for Jeff Moss to step down in conversations with The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.

Their comments on the board's options moving forward have centered around the district's nepotism rule, which is under the purview of the superintendent.

Board member Geri Kinton said Thursday she thought nepotism should be defined by a board policy instead. She added that she believes Darlene Moss' hiring was appropriate but was disappointed that Jeff Moss did not tell board members he'd revised the district's nepotism rule.

"But it is administrative rule, and, at this point, that's the way it works," Kinton said.

Jeff Moss has said he does not remember when he changed the rule, other than it was sometime in late July or early August.

"I have no idea what date. I have no idea what I was eating at the time. I have no idea where I was," he said Monday.

District spokesman Jim Foster said Thursday he was unable to find out when the rule was changed and that it was possible there was no exact date. He could not explain the process by which Moss revised the rule.

On Monday, Jeff Moss also said he understood the board could choose to create a policy that would apply to all district employees. Asked that day why he thought residents had expressed frustration about his wife's hiring, Jeff Moss said he had not received a single phone call or email in response. Of online commenters on The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette's website, he said several were likely holding grudges.

"I think you're trying to find something that's not there. ..." Jeff Moss said. "I would suspect when we did redistricting, some of those people felt and still feel we were wrong to draw lines where we did."

Kinton, the board member, said she thinks the current rules on nepotism work well for Jeff Moss and Rhoads because of their professional relationship. But that's not good enough, she said.

A policy should be in place that would prevent any future issues, she said.

While board member Paul Roth has refused to take a stance on Darlene Moss' hiring, he agrees with Kinton on that point.

"I don't think nepotism is an issue with (Jeff Moss)," Roth said. "That doesn't mean some future person wouldn't take advantage of it" under the current rule.

Beaufort County Council, which controls the district's budget, is considering collaborating with the board to create a standard nepotism policy, according to county administrator Gary Kubic.

"Maybe there should be a uniform nepotism policy that we all understand and agreed to, not only as elected officials but as appointed officials," Kubic said.

The county's nepotism policy is already more stringent than the school district's, and an even more detailed version is awaiting approval.

The draft states, "Persons who are related by birth or become related by marriage will not be employed or continued to be employed if one directly or indirectly supervises another, interacts with another in the handling of money or compensation, works in a department where adequate separation is not possible, or in any other situation that administration deems inappropriate."

In an email response Friday afternoon, Moss said, "I haven't communicated with any board members about (a board nepotism policy) and can't comment on policy or rule changes that I haven't reviewed."

He also said he had not seen the Change.org petition calling for his resignation and didn't have a reaction to it.

As of 6 p.m. Friday, that petition had 139 supporters.

The petition's creator, Greater Bluffton Republican Club president Joe Iaco, said he didn't know the superintendent's political affiliation and didn't see his wife's hiring as a partisan issue. However, he wrote online, the situation seemed to speak to "a clear pattern of poor judgment when it comes to nepotism."

"His actions have really destroyed the public trust," Iaco said Friday afternoon. "Until we take a stand against things like that, it's not going to get any better. You have people that are jaded and feel like this is a system rigged against them."

While the petition quickly gained traction, another prominent local Republican urged his followers to speak out in support of Jeff Moss. Tom Hatfield, who co-founded the Hilton Head Island 1st Monday Republican Lunch Group, emailed his contacts asking them to call for the superintendent to end his wife's employment, arguing that resigning would be akin to "throwing the baby out with the bath water."

"We simply cannot afford to attempt to replace him," Hatfield wrote. "He is simply the best superintendent we have had in many, many years."

Email penned by Moss

BOARD MEETING

The Beaufort County Board of Education has called a special meeting to discuss its personnel hiring practices in executive session.

Here's what you need to know:

When: 5 p.m. Monday

Where: Media center of the Beaufort County School District's Education Services Center, 2900 Mink Point Blvd., Beaufort.

What: An open session and public comments will follow the closed session.

Follow reporter Rebecca Lurye on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Rebecca.

This story was originally published September 18, 2015 at 4:08 PM with the headline "Beaufort County school board to review hiring practices in special executive session Monday."