Our View: School board must restore public's trust

The Beaufort County Board of Education has driven our most crucial public enterprise into the ditch.

Beaufort County School District Superintendent Jeff Moss was the driver. And therein lies the problem. The school board has abdicated its responsibility.

Moss used poor judgment, to put it mildly, in enabling his wife to fill a newly created administrative job in the central office at a salary of more than $90,000 per year.

For this to be accomplished, Moss changed district ethics rules to delete the paragraph that would have prohibited this obvious conflict of interest. Moss said he did not know his wife was interested in the position of "director of innovation" as it was being created.

That Moss would condone this is unfathomable. It places a permanent pock mark on his judgment, leadership ability and character.

But clearly, Moss has been given the message from the school board that the school district is his show to run as he sees fit.

In doing so, the school board elected to oversee the district has shirked its duties.

This is not a case of school board members micro-managing a school district. This is a case of the school board allowing a hired hand to tarnish its reputation without the board so much as taking a vote.

What more important duty does the school board have than protecting the public's trust? Students, parents, teachers, principals, volunteers and taxpayers depend on the school board, and the school board has let them down.

As it stands, the board says Moss acted within his purview to change the so-called administrative rule on nepotism. It had been established to keep a disaster such as this from happening. As a result, we have no accountability by the elected leadership. That is wrong and it must change.

The result should have been easily predictable. It was certainly avoidable.

We are in that long line of public school supporters in Beaufort County who have advocated -- often pushing against the grain -- for more money, more teachers, more art instruction, more discipline, more buildings, more programs and more public support for the schools.

Now, who will believe the school district when it says what it needs?

We also are in the long line in Beaufort County that has demanded accountability and transparency from the school district, often to its displeasure.

Today, accountability and sound ethics are needed more than ever. The school board must pull itself out of the ditch. Now.

This story was originally published September 19, 2015 at 6:26 PM with the headline "Our View: School board must restore public's trust."