A recently departed Prince George’s County school board member who frequently missed board meetings held since the beginning of the year had started a job in January as a high-level official in a Missouri school district.
David Murray, who was first elected to the board in 2016 to represent District 1, resigned from his Prince George’s post last week, five months before the end of his second term. News of his position in Missouri and his subsequent school board resignation were first reported by WTOP.
During the 2023-2024 school year, Murray often was absent from meetings and attended others virtually. A request for his removal from the board had been filed with the Maryland State Board of Education for “willful neglect of duty.” The spokesperson for the state department of education declined to release further details of that complaint, including who filed it. It was dismissed after Murray stepped down.
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Murray started his job as chief academic officer with the Ferguson-Florissant School District on Jan. 4, said Onye Hollomon, a spokesperson for the Missouri school district. “He has had no issues with attendance and adhering to the in-person work requirement,” she said in an email. Hollomon did not respond to a question about Murray’s salary with Ferguson-Florissant.
Prince George’s School Board members are required to be registered voters in the county, according to the school board’s handbook, and elected members are required to live in their district. The handbook also instructs board members to “attend all regularly scheduled Board meetings insofar possible” and allows virtual attendance up to four times in a fiscal year.
The board roles are part-time jobs with an annual stipend of about $18,000, while the chair receives an additional $1,000. It is typical for members to have a full-time role or be a retiree.
Prince George’s school officials did not respond to questions about how much of the stipend Murray has received this year. He had previously filed for reelection on Dec. 26, but he told WTOP he is no longer running for the seat.
Murray declined to comment on his dual roles but said in a resignation letter last week, “I resign effectively immediately. I would like to sincerely thank District 1 for believing in me and supporting me over the years. God bless.” He did not mention his Missouri job.
A spokeswoman for Prince George’s County Public Schools referred questions about Murray to Ryvell Fitzpatrick, the school board’s director. Fitzpatrick did not respond to requests for comment, nor did the school board chair.
The complaint with the state board was considered moot after Murray stepped down and was dismissed Tuesday, according to a copy of the decision provided by Murray. A spokeswoman for the state department of education confirmed the action.
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Hollomon said the Missouri system was aware that Murray was a school board member for a district in Maryland, but was told he would be transitioning away from that role.
The Prince George’s County school board oversees Maryland’s second-largest district. Over the past few years, it’s been a 14-member board with both elected and appointed board members, but in June, it transitioned to a fully elected school board, with nine elected members and a student member.
Edward Burroughs — a former ally of Murray on the school board who now serves on the Prince George’s County Council — said that Murray met the legal residency requirement because he is still a homeowner, taxpayer and resident in the county. He added that Murray was in the final year of his second term and wanted to close out his responsibilities. The board was going through a transition this summer as the terms of the outgoing appointed members were set to expire. Murray decided to leave around the time the other members were, Burroughs said.
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“He was an incredible school board member full of integrity, full of expertise and a strong work ethic,” said Burroughs, who now represents District 8 on the county council.
In addition to his part-time job as a Prince George’s County school board member, Murray served as an adjunct faculty member at American University in its Education Policy and Leadership department, according to his biography with the Missouri school district. He was also a literacy coach for the Children’s Literacy Initiative and worked as a learning specialist and bilingual special education teacher at schools in D.C.
During his tenure on the school board, he was part of a group of millennial school board members who were previously students in the school system and at one point made up five out of the nine elected seats. He was a part of a voting bloc that focused on inflated graduation rates, large pay raises to executive staff and a nearly $800,000 contract payout to a schools chief whose tenure was marred by scandal. Several of those members have since left, citing a dysfunctional environment.
In 2019, Murray was one of the most vocal critics of Patricia Eubanks keeping her District 4 school board seat when there were questions on whether she met the residency requirement, said Alvin Thornton, who served as chair of the school board at that time. Thornton said that Murray “prosecuted that as a board member more aggressively than anybody else.” Eubanks later resigned.
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Thornton says Murray should have resigned after he agreed to take the job in Missouri.
“Whatever may have been the explanation for the dual employment, the dual residency in an important elective position, I have no interest in that. That’s his personal issue,” said Thornton, who served as chair four times and is respected in the education world for his work leading a state commission on education funding. “What I have an issue with is the duplicity, the lack of consistent ethics.” He said the school board and county council need to “learn from these examples.”
Former school board chair Judy Mickens-Murray, whose term expired in June, said some members speculated that Murray’s residency may have changed because his attendance was spotty. She said she learned the state board of education was looking into Murray, and had wanted to wait for the outcome of that investigation to decide next steps. She said she found out about his job in Missouri after her term ended.
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Pamela Boozer-Strother, who represents District 3 on the school board, said she was one of the skeptical board members, noting Murray hadn’t been attending meetings in-person starting in January. But he would show up occasionally virtually, she said. She added she found out about his other job after he resigned.
“He should have resigned at that time and allowed the process of replacement to proceed so that the students and school families of District 1 had representation,” she said.
Typically when a school board member resigns, County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) appoints a replacement to serve until the next election. Zipporah Miller (District 5) and Madeline LaSalle Frazier (District 8), were Alsobrooks’s choices to fill two recent vacancies.
