School board member calls for review of Jeff Moss' actions
One Beaufort County school board member said she is planning to ask for a review of recent actions by Superintendent Jeff Moss, who altered the district's nepotism rule and approved his wife's hire at the start of the school year.
JoAnn Orischak, who represents southern Hilton Head Island, said Tuesday she wants the school board to examine Moss' performance in relation to the hire of Darlene Moss as innovation director, a position she resigned from on Sept. 19 after five days on the job.
"We can't move forward as a board, as a school district and get beyond this until we address it as a board," Orischak said.
Reached Tuesday, Jeff Moss said only that the board may discuss his performance at any time and declined to comment further.
Orischak said she would have started the conversation sooner but she did not realize until Saturday that Jeff Moss' annual review, scheduled to be conducted by the school board next week, will only cover the period of July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2015.
That's a few weeks before the superintendent told former school board chairman Bill Evans that his wife was interested in working for the school district, and before Moss approved the director of innovation job description and eliminated the portion of the district's nepotism rule that dealt with the hiring of superintendents' relatives.
Some board members, such as Okatie representative Paul Roth, have argued they don't see the need for a second review that focuses just on Moss' involvement in the nepotism controversy.
On Tuesday, Roth added that the board has already discussed the appropriateness of Moss' actions in closed-door, executive sessions, and though there is disagreement among board members, there is nothing left to say.
"I absolutely will certainly give him a very high evaluation up to (June 30, 2015), and if anybody asks me about his performance to date, I'd say what happened was unfortunate, but the person who was primarily responsible has resigned," Roth said, referring to Evans' resignation Oct. 6.
St. Helena Island board representative Michael Rivers disagreed. He said it seems a majority of the community wants more scrutiny of the situation.
"I think until we show that we have aggressively dealt with the issue, I don't believe it's going to go away," Rivers said. "More efforts need to be done to satisfy the concerns of the community, because ultimately, until the community is truly satisfied, we are fighting an uphill battle."
Orishcak said she hopes the board will discuss the possibility of a review at its Nov. 17 meeting.
As of Wednesday, board chair Mary Cordray said she had not received a request from Orischak to place the issue on the agenda. A majority of board members would have to agree for the review to go forward.
Follow reporter Rebecca Lurye at twitter.com/IPBG_Rebecca.
Related content:
- Superintendent Jeff Moss' annual review won't cover period of wife's hire, November 8, 2015
- Most Beaufort school board members decline comment on hiring of superintendent's wife, September 16, 2015
- Superintendent changed nepotism rule: Questions arise following wife's hire for new position, September 14, 2015
This story was originally published November 11, 2015 at 2:22 PM with the headline "School board member calls for review of Jeff Moss' actions."