Mount Pleasant Magazine Jan/Feb 2015

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F or as long as most people
can remember, the Charleston County
School Board has been featured on the
front page of local newspapers for all
the wrong reasons. Its meetings have
been punctuated by petty arguments,
meaningless, meandering discussions,
vicious vendettas and unfounded accusations. In October,
less than a week before a new board was to be elected,
the old board forced the district’s longest-serving super-
intendent to resign, despite the district’s academic success
during her tenure.
The two newest members of the school board repre-
senting East Cooper want to change all that. Kate Darby
and Chris Staubes, both entering the political arena for the
first time, were elected to four-year
terms to the board on Nov. 4 and
were sworn in six days later.
“We want the front page news
concerning the school district to be
about academic achievement and
awards our students win, not about
fighting among school board mem-
bers,” said Darby, the director of administration at J. Henry
Stuhr funeral home. “The most important focus should be
on student achievement. That should be our goal.”
“The infighting was a distraction,” Staubes, an attorney,
added. “We want to bring stability to the school board.”
Though neither Darby nor Staubes has run for
elected office in the past, both have a vested interest in
and previous connections to the county school system.
Darby’s two sons are graduates of Wando High School,
and she has chaired the School Improvement Council at
Mount Pleasant Academy, Moultrie Middle and Wando.
She also was president of the PTA at Mount Pleasant
Academy and served on a committee tasked with com-
ing up with ways to solve the problem of overcrowded
East Cooper schools.
Staubes was the real estate attorney for the school dis-
trict for a decade, resigning from that position so he could
run for a seat on the board. He has three children in the
system: a 15-year-old at Academic Magnet High School,
a 13-year-old at Cario Middle School and a 9-year-old at
Pinckney Elementary School.
Darby and Staubes agree that the job description for
a school board member should not include managing the
day-to-day operations of the district. That responsibility
belongs to the superintendent, or, in the case of Charleston
County, the interim superintendent.
“The job of the board is to set policy and supervise the
superintendent. It isn’t to micromanage,” Staubes said.
“The board is a liaison between the public and the
superintendent,” he added, pointing out that he is already
fielding phone calls from various groups that want to
provide board members with information about their posi-
tions on issues related to education.
“Our role is to hold the superintendent accountable
and have oversight over the budget,”
Darby stated. “We’re not there to
micromanage.”
Much of the work of the board’s
nine members will be done in the
Policy, Strategic Education and Audit
and Finance committees. Darby is a
member of the Policy Committee,
while both Darby and Staubes serve on the Strategic Edu-
cation Committee.
Staubes also was elected by his fellow board members
to be vice chair. He meets with the chair, Cindy Bohn
Coats, and the superintendent to set the agenda for each
board meeting. He also will be responsible for handling
what in the past was one of the most contentious parts
of school board sessions: when the general public gets to
voice their opinion to their elected officials.
Staubes pointed out that the Charleston County
School District has many pressing needs, but the most
important are choosing a new superintendent and decid-
ing which schools will be built or expanded to serve the
needs of a sprawling district with 48,000 students. He and
Darby agreed that a nationwide search for a new leader is
appropriate, but neither ruled out the possibility of offer-
ing the job to someone who is already in the Lowcountry,
such as Interim Superintendent Michael Bobby, Chief
Academic Officer Lisa Herring or even McGinley.
Charleston exce l l ence i s ou r s t anda rd
County SCHOOL DIS T RICT
“The job of the board is to
set policy and supervise
the superintendent.”