Kandrac takes on district

Elizabeth Kandrac ran for a seat on the Charleston County School Board because she saw a need for change and because she wanted to be a voice for the community.

But her efforts to be a catalyst for improvement have alienated some of her board colleagues and the district's top leadership. She's a contrarian to the superintendent, and at least one board member described her as combative. Perhaps because she's been such a controversial figure, some even have questioned the legitimacy of her North Charleston residence.

Kandrac sees herself differently. She said she's trying to fix schools the only way she knows how -- as a professional educator. Kandrac has multiple academic degrees in education, and she's put those to work in local and out-of-state classrooms.

"I got elected from people who want me to fight for them, and I am," Kandrac said. "My work is sincere, and I'm fighting for what I believe ... I'm doing what I think is best to educate our children."

Residency questions

Former Charleston County School Board Chairman and North Charleston resident Hillery Douglas is among those who don't think Kandrac lives where she says she does. He's had these suspicions since she signed up to run for the board, and he said officials need to ensure state laws are being followed.

"I just think that she ought to resign and let someone who truly lives in North Charleston and cares about the children ... and the education in North Charleston ... represent North Charleston," he said. "We want people who are going to be here full time."

Kandrac said she does live in North Charleston. She said her husband has been living and working in North Carolina since June, and that they have a long-distance relationship in which they see each other every couple of weeks. She said she spends hours at a time working out of the superintendent's conference room at the district's downtown office because it's convenient, and she gave the newspaper an address that she said is where she's lived since October of last year.

Kandrac said that she rents a room from the home's owner but that she doesn't sleep there every night. She got married in February, but said she didn't move in with her husband, and he didn't move into her rented room. She said her husband kept his own place and she stayed where she was to remain eligible for the school board.

School board members must be a resident of the county and their constituent district at the time of the election, and if they move out of their district after being elected, they must resign. State law defines a person's residence as "a person's fixed home where he has an intention of returning when he is absent. A person has only one domicile."

Two neighbors of the house Kandrac calls home didn't know who Kandrac was when asked by The Post and Courier, but they could identify the home's owner, Kristi Cadwell.

When reached by phone, Cadwell said she met Kandrac during her campaign for the school board, considered her a friend, and saw her "fairly often." She said Kandrac comes over to her house to visit.

When asked whether Kandrac slept there, Cadwell wanted to know why she was being asked that and called it "an unusual question." When pressed further, Cadwell said she needed to talk with Kandrac before answering any additional "intrusive" questions. Before hanging up and speaking to Kandrac, Cadwell said that Kandrac stays there and pays rent.

Kandrac provided the newspaper with receipts and copies of checks for the $25 in monthly rent she's paid Cadwell since October 2008.

Relationship of discord

The dramatic difference between the way Kandrac sees herself and the way some see her has been a source of friction during her first year on the board. At the end of September, Kandrac came under fire for showing up without invitation at a district administrators' meeting and, according to multiple sources, disrupting it by taking notes, taking pictures with her camera phone and repeatedly walking in and out of the room. Kandrac contends she observed the meeting quietly by standing in the back of the room and that her presence was considered disruptive because some people don't like her.

Kandrac butted heads again with the district after implying a few weeks ago on WTMA-AM that the district bought lunches for a group of nearly 80 principals. During a recent board meeting School Superintendent Nancy McGinley told the board that the meals were donated by Jim N' Nicks restaurant as a token of appreciation for the principals' hard work, and no public money was spent.

Kandrac's rocky relationship with the district began long before her service on the board. After losing her job at Brentwood Middle School five years ago, Kandrac, who is white, sued the school district, alleging that she worked in a racially hostile environment at the predominantly black school and that its staff failed to take her complaints seriously. A federal jury sided with Kandrac and awarded her $307,500 in damages. The district eventually settled with her for $200,000.

Kandrac thinks similar kinds of racially hostile work environments still exist in the district's schools, and she doesn't think much else in the district has improved since she worked there. She said the district's leadership and some school board members are ignorant about the seriousness of discipline problems in schools. School leaders who know when board members are coming for a visit make sure their worst students aren't allowed out of classrooms and that board members see only the best parts of the school, she said. Principals sometimes chauffeur her around, not because they don't trust her but because they want to make sure she isn't hurt by students, she said.

Kandrac said teachers are afraid they will lose their jobs for criticizing the district, and some schools are filled with unsupervised students who roam the halls and prevent teachers from teaching effectively.

Until recently, Kandrac hasn't said much during school board meetings, but she has consistently pointed out grammatical and informational errors in the board's minutes.

It might seem like an odd issue to focus on, but Kandrac said her reason for doing so comes from a handbook given to her and other school board members from the South Carolina School Board Association. That handbook said that meeting minutes could end up in court, and they need to be correct.

Board Vice Chairman Gregg Meyers has been critical of Kandrac's focus on the mistakes in meeting minutes. He said he'd rather see the board spend its time on bigger issues.

"I haven't seen the connection between getting minutes free of typos and improving student achievement," he said. "I'll be glad to take minutes riddled with typos if students across the board get a good education. To me, it doesn't matter. If it matters to her, that's fine."

Kandrac's background

Kandrac's father earned a GED and her mother didn't graduate from high school, but they instilled in Kandrac the value of education. She was the first in her family to earn a college degree.

She grew up in an impoverished family and attended Pennsylvania public schools. She paid her way through Luzerne County Community College and King's College by working as many as three jobs at a time, scrubbing toilets and doing archival research. She married, helped put her husband through college, had two children, divorced and decided to return to a career in education. She taught at a community college in Virginia, then moved to Charleston in 2003. She liked Charleston, and it was conveniently located between the cities where her children were living.

Kandrac, 58, hasn't taught in the Charleston County School District since her lawsuit, but she has been an instructor at Trident Technical College and at a private school in Dorchester County.

She first ran for the school board in 2004, which was after she'd lost her job at Brentwood Middle and during the time she was threatening to file a lawsuit against the school district. She lost to Meyers. She ran again last fall and won.

Marvin Stewart, a downtown resident and constituent board member, met Kandrac during her campaign last year for the school board but has been a fan of hers since she sued the district. Stewart, a critic of the district, said Kandrac adds value to the board because it's a close-knit, cliquish group that worries only about the superintendent's job and making McGinley look good. He said Kandrac puts student achievement first.

He said the superintendent's supporters marginalize anyone who doesn't share their views and that that's what has happened to Kandrac.

"She is just trying to make them transparent because the school system has very little to any credibility with the community," Stewart said. "They don't want dirty laundry hung out."

He agrees with her position that schools haven't improved and doesn't fault her for trying to keep the district accountable by requesting information and documents.

"I hope she doesn't back down," he said. "She's right on point. She single-handedly has become a champion to those who want access and to know what's going on."

Secret information

Kandrac thinks that the district's leadership does a lot that it doesn't want her or the public to know about.

One example, she said, was her request about the money the district sent to the Charleston Education Network, a local education watchdog group, from October 2003 until August. The district responded with the amount of the payments, and Kandrac responded with two more requests for information that would detail where and how the money was spent.

The district gave the newspaper proof that it provided the requested information to Kandrac in October, but she said she never received it.

Kandrac's requested more information from the district than any other board member. Among the information she's asked for: the superintendent's out-of-state travel and phone calls; the superintendent's weekly calendar; all teacher and staff training dates and materials; and agendas, minutes, names, gender and race of those on the district's diversity council. Since August, she's made more than two dozen requests for information; of the remaining board members, only one has made three information requests during that same time.

She said that certain board members, such as Meyers and board Chairwoman Toya Green, receive information that no one else does, and it makes her wonder about what the district is hiding.

Green said she didn't think the district was hiding anything. Green meets and talks with the superintendent more than other members because of her leadership role as the board's chair, but she tries to share whatever she knows with the other board members.

Kandrac cited as an example not being told in advance about Wando High School Principal Lucy Beckham winning the national principal of the year award and only receiving an e-mail that a ceremony was happening at the school. She said a state representative who was there received a phone call from the district office to let him know what was happening, but she didn't receive the same courtesy except for an e-mail, which she's told officials she doesn't regularly check.

"It's just the tip of the iceberg," she said. "If we're not being told simple things like that, what else aren't we being told?"

Meyers said in that instance, the national association presenting the award wanted to keep it a surprise until the announcement, and the superintendent approached Green and him about whether the board should be told. He suggested not telling the board because there would be no guarantee whether it would be kept a secret, but all board members were invited to attend.

Kandrac said another example is her request for the bills associated with McGinley's trip to Houston for a job interview. Kandrac wanted to know who paid for the trip and to see the bills, but McGinley said she took the trip on her day off, made the charges on her personal credit card and shared those records only with Green. Details of McGinley's personal trips aren't subject to the state's Freedom of Information Act, but McGinley showed Green as a courtesy to the board. The board's policy is what one board member asks for, every board member receives.

Meyers described Kandrac as combative and said she has a misconception about what the board's role is. She sees the board and superintendent as having the same job in terms of running the district, and Meyers said they don't. The board's role isn't to monitor what happens in classrooms, he said, but to focus on guiding the district with policies and budget.

But Kandrac said she thinks board members should speak up if they see the district going in the wrong direction. She's not out to get the superintendent, but she doesn't think she's doing a good job.

"A lot of people are working for the superintendent," she said. "It's not that way (for me). I'm working for the people, not the administration."

Reach Diette Courrégé at 937-5546 or dcourrege@postandcourier.com.