For the last four years — especially in 2023 and 2024 — the Charleston County School District Board of Trustees has been a pure mess. While its last couple of years have been calmer, let’s not forget how five trustees backed by the right-wing Moms for Liberty group hijacked local educational leadership with too many executive sessions and a whole lot of drama.
Perhaps the best thing Charleston County voters can do in the Nov. 3 elections is to kick out all of the past M4L candidates and restore reason and order to the school board with trustees who show promise to focus on students, not culture wars. We recommend that you support the following:
District 1 (Mount Pleasant): Char Fitzwater. The school board can use the years of experience earned by Fitzwater in education and business to help make progress for students over the next four years. She will work with others to come to balanced decisions in the interests of parents and students as well as help the board move away from political distractions.
District 3 (North Charleston/Charleston): Joseph Bennett. A former educator, Bennett seems to understand that how students use artificial intelligence may be the board’s most pressing issue. And consistent with his commitment to making the board less political, he’s right to say the sole question for trustees is “whether the choice facing them is the right decision for all students.”
District 5 (North Charleston): Libby Tisdale. We like what Tisdale says about how the business of the board, often conducted secretly in the recent past, should be done in public. Executive sessions, she said, should be limited, and “not as a routine way to avoid public discussion.” Hear, hear.
District 7 (West Ashley): Joy Brown. Experienced with constituent board leadership, Brown has good ideas that can help the board to take policy as seriously as it does finances. She believes a new policy committee would go a long way in restoring public trust that eroded over the last four years.
District 9 (James Island): Carol Tempel. The only incumbent we’re endorsing, Tempel focused on students over the last four years, not all of the drama. She listens and thinks. She understands that trustees are supposed to govern, not manage — and that good governance takes collaboration, transparency and accountability.
This year, we’re not making endorsements for candidates for Charleston County Council, but we do encourage voters to support two other county elected officials:
Probate Judge: Tamara Curry. We believe it’s time for fresh leadership in this countywide office. A seasoned lawyer, we believe Curry has the knowledge and empathy to help families in tough times as they deal with wills, estates and other issues.
Register of Deeds: Karen Lesser Hollings. While unopposed on the ballot, it’s still important to cast a vote for her. She’s done a good job of cleaning up the register of deeds office and reducing an embarrassing inherited backlog.
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