Former school board chair and longtime Moss supporter is not running for re-election

For Mary Cordray — arguably one of the most powerful members of the Beaufort County Board of Education and an outspoken supporter of controversial former superintendent Jeff Moss — the decision on whether to run for re-election came down to the wire.

“Actually, I had my stuff all done, the paperwork filled out and signed just in case,” she said Wednesday shortly before the deadline to file.

But, when the clock struck noon, Cordray’s paperwork was still in hand.

“I decided (not to run) this morning, pretty much when I rode in (to work),” she said.

Cordray was first elected to the school board in 2012. She served as the board’s vice chair from 2013 to 2015 and, in late 2015, took over as chair from board member Bill Evans, who resigned after it was first revealed that Moss’ wife had been hired for a high-paying district position.

The board’s decision not to sanction Moss in the aftermath split members into two distinct factions — a division that continues to this day.

Cordray has steadfastly supported Moss through widespread public criticism, his guilty pleas to state ethics violations, two failed school bond referendums and at least one ongoing FBI investigation.

Critics of Cordray say she helped deepen the divide on the board and has continued to wield great influence behind the scenes since stepping down as chair in January 2017.

In handing over the reins at that time, Cordray told The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette that she did so because she didn’t want the public’s focus to be on her.

“I really don’t,” she said. “And I feel like it was headed in that direction.”

These, however, are not among the reasons she has listed in her decision not to run.

Instead she points to the three other candidates who have filed in her district, including former school board member Paul Roth, who Cordray spent four years working alongside, saying she would have run if there had been only one candidate for the district.

“I’m glad that there are multiple candidates for the (district 8) seat,” she said. “I was actually feeling a little sad that the other seats had multiple candidates and seat 8 only had one for a long time.”

Another reason she said she’s not running again is because serving on the board has been like working “another full-time job,” she said.

“My life has been limited for the last six years,” Cordray said Wednesday.

Working behind the scenes

Over the past three years — since Moss’ nepotism scandal — tensions have run high among school board members. They have called the cops on one another, tried to censure fellow board members and even went as far as hiring an outside facilitator to try and resolve their issues.

Some members of the board’s minority bloc say Cordray’s behind-the-scenes actions — as well as the actions of other majority board members — have been partially to blame for this.

Most recently this opinion was aired in a board meeting on June 19.

During a discussion about a threatened lawsuit accusing the board of violating the state’s Freedom for Information Act, Cordray repeatedly interrupted board member Joseph Dunkle, who had started the conversation.

“This is not related to the motion on the floor,” Cordray said, looking at board chair Earl Campbell, who is mostly quiet during meetings. “Mr. Campbell, point of order. Point of order, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair.”

In response, Dunkle said: “This is what we’re illustrating right here. Either people are following other members blindly, they’re convening behind the scenes or Mary Cordray still thinks she’s the chair, because she’s still trying to run this meeting.”

When asked about the interaction shortly after the meeting, Cordray denied the merit of Dunkle’s claim.

“I don’t think I act any different than any other board member,” she said. “If I have influence with other board members, it’s because they respect my opinion.”

Despite Cordray’s denial, those on the board’s five-member minority say the power she has is obvious.

“I do think that (Cordray) works behind the scenes, makes phone calls, lines people up, and I’m vehemently opposed to that,” board member David Stribeinger said in a previous interview.

Christina Gwozdz unleashed her opinion about behind-the-scenes operations at a March 20 board meeting when she read a statement aloud accusing three board members, including Cordray, of running a “parallel” school board with non-elected private citizens who had formed STAND, a pro-referendum group.

At a Dec. 12 meeting, Cordray made the motion to hold a $76 million school bond referendum, a figure that had never been publicly presented or discussed by the board until her motion that evening.

Emails later released by the district in response to a Freedom of Information Act request show Cordray communicating with one of STAND’s co-founders, Amanda Walrad, hours before that meeting.

Cordray shared her word-for-word motion with Walrad, writing, “Please note that I have not shared this with the full Board at this time … I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

Fellow board members took issue with this.

“A board is supposed to have discussions and have them in public and make good decisions based on those discussions,” Gwozdz said in a previous interview. “And it’s always going to come down to a vote, but you should give everyone on that board a voice, because otherwise some constituents aren’t represented.

“So really, Mary was excluding my constituents.”

A continued loyalty

Moss left the Beaufort County School District on July 31, two years before his contract was up and after five controversial years in the district that included two failed referendums, two guilty pleas to state ethics violations over the hiring of his wife and at least one ongoing FBI investigation.

Since January, the school district and its employees have received four federal grand jury subpoenas. Only three of the four were made public on Aug. 14, because one was delivered directly to a former school district employee and is not in the district’s possession.

The first two subpoenas were related to an FBI investigation related to the construction of two Bluffton schools that were built during Moss’ tenure.

The fourth subpoena, which was issued to the district on Aug. 2, focused solely on Moss. The grand jury asked the district to hand over all of Moss’ personnel records, as well as information about the district’s connection to the controversial Education Research and Development Institute and more than 30 other companies.

Cordray said the contents of the most recent subpoena have not made her question her support for Moss — nor have they made her reconsider her opinion about his last five years with the district.

“Just because they asked for information doesn’t mean anyone has done anything wrong,” she said.

“Until someone shows us something was done wrong, it doesn’t mean (Moss) is guilty of anything.”

This story was originally published August 15, 2018 at 6:22 PM.