What’s next for former Wake Superintendent Catty Moore? A seat on the NC education board

Gov. Roy Cooper announced Monday that he has appointed former Wake County Superintendent Catty Moore to serve on the State Board of Education.

In his announcement, Cooper pointed to Moore’s 35 years of service in public education, including the last five as Wake County superintendent before she retired at the end of June. Moore will fill the at-large seat vacated by former Charlotte-Mecklenburg teacher James Ford, who resigned in September.

“I’m glad to appoint more Hispanic and Latino leaders to my boards and commissions, including Dr. Catty Moore to the North Carolina State Board of Education and the new members of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Hispanic and Latino Affairs,” Cooper, a Democrat, said in his announcement. “We’re going to continue to uplift diversity in all of our state agencies and departments.”

October is National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Moore’s appointment is subject to confirmation by the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

State lawmakers have steadily been removing power from the State Board of Education, which currently has a majority made up of Cooper’s appointees. This year alone, lawmakers stripped the state board of its powers to approve and renew charter schools and to oversee high school athletics.

The state board still retains powers, though, such as adopting the academic standards used in each subject.

Wake’s first female and Latina superintendent

Moore, 59, whose maiden name is Quiroz, was 2 years old when her family moved from Ecuador to the United States. She went for decades by the first name of Cathy before changing last year to go by her legal first name of Catty.

Moore went on to become the first member of her family to graduate from college. After initially planning to be an engineer, she opted for teaching and relocated to Wake in 1988 to teach French at Enloe High School in Raleigh.

She rose through the ranks in Wake and was put in charge of overseeing academics as deputy superintendent in 2011. In 2018, Moore became Wake County’s first female and first Latina superintendent.

Moore led North Carolina’s largest school district and the 15th-largest district in the nation. Wake has more than 160,000 students and an annual operating budget of more than $2 billion.

Moore led Wake during the pandemic while in-person instruction was limited.

Cooper cited Moore’s multiple awards, including being named the Wake County Principal of the Year, the North Carolina Central Region Principal of the Year, the North Carolina PTA Superintendent of the Year and the Magnet Schools of America National Superintendent of the Year.

But Moore’s critics cite how test scores are lower than when she first started and accused her of promoting a “woke” ideology in schools.