MARLBORO COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — The Marlboro County School District superintendent Dr. Gregory McCord is resigning after allowing his fraternity to operate on school property without notifying the school board.

The motion to accept his resignation was approved at a special meeting Wednesday.

McCord admitted that he allowed the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, of which he is a member, to operate on the property of Bennettsville Intermediate School without first speaking to the Marlboro County Board of Education. 

The district was paying the utilities for this building that sat behind the actual school building.

McCord was previously place on leave for nine days and offered to reimburse the district for the pay he received while not working.

At a Sept. 13 meeting, Gregory Cain, a member of the fraternity said that the group wanted to partner with the school district to use the facility as a place for youth mentorship, not as a fraternity house. He made a presentation to the board which was the result of a community concern about the facility. Cain said at that time that he would like to continue what he referred to as a “partnership” with the district. He also offered to have the fraternity reimburse the district to offset the cost of utilities.

When board member Michael Coachman asked Cain on Sept. 13 who had authorized the fraternity to operate at this facility, McCord spoke up. Before McCord announced that he had provided authorization, he was asked by Coachman to recuse himself from the discussion, but McCord declined. McCord also said that two other members of the board were also members of the same fraternity. One of them recused himself during the Sept. 13 meeting.

After a discussion, the board voted 5-0 on Sept. 13 to instruct the fraternity to remove the building from the property.

McCord told News13 after that meeting that if he could do it all over again, he “most definitely” would have handled the Omega Psi Phi situation differently and said he did not intend to go around the school board. He said part of his job as superintendent is to build partnerships in the community and he felt he was doing this by allowing for a space that could help children.