Students will ‘see the legacy of the Gullah.’ Charter school to open on St. Helena

For the first time since the Penn School closed in 1948, St. Helena Island public middle and high school students won’t have to leave the island to go to class.

The Sea Islands Heritage Academy will open in 2024 as a public charter school with Gullah Geechee culture and community at its core, according to co-founder Alana Jenkins, who is of Gullah heritage. The South Carolina Public Charter School District Board of Trustees approved the school’s application last week.

“Community is truly the impetus and really the heart of that application,” Jenkins said.

The academy will be in the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor near the Penn Center in The Corners community. It will open with a class of 150 sixth and seventh graders for the 2024-25 school year and plans to expand to over 550 sixth through 12th grade students in the next 10 years. That number is about 5% of the district’s current students.

The building plan includes three high school classrooms, four middle school classrooms, an administration building, a dining hall, a library and “lots of green spaces,” according to Jenkins.

Only the first phase, the middle school classrooms, is planned for the 2024-25 school year. Construction will cost around $3 million, according to Jenkins. She said the entire plan will cost about $12 million and, over the next four years, the academy will receive about $3 million in funding from the SCPCSD and $1.3 million from private donors. The rest of the school’s funding also will come from the SCPCSD and private donors.

‘Not usually a proponent’

Students statewide are eligible to attend the charter school, and there is no cost to attend. Jenkins said all are welcome, but they’re especially trying to appeal to St. Helena Island and Seabrook Island students who underperform in Beaufort County public schools.

Data show these students tend to be Black and below the poverty line. In Beaufort County, 40% of Black residents are below the poverty line compared to 5.5% of white residents and 11.9% of all residents, according to the most recent census.

In Beaufort County public schools, 85.7% of African American students graduate compared to 91.5% of Caucasian students and 88.5% of all students. Statewide, the graduation rates are worse for each of the demographics.

In the new charter school’s intended service area, some neighborhoods have poverty rates as high as 80%, and poverty is linked with poor education outcomes, Jenkins said. She has spent a decade teaching and in administrative positions at charter schools in New York and Washington, D.C.

“I am not usually a proponent for charter schools,” said Beaufort County Councilman York Glover. However, the St. Helena representative supports the Sea Islands Heritage Academy because it targets struggling students who aren’t succeeding in the system.

Place-based education

Students at Sea Islands Heritage Academy will be taught using “place-based education,” according to Jenkins, a learning model that will leverage St. Helena Island’s rich culture and history for the benefit of the students and the community.

“It really sees the classroom as larger than just four walls,” Jenkins said. “It sees the classroom as a community, and it asks scholars to participate in their local community and leave a footprint.”

St. Helena Island is an epicenter of Gullah Geechee culture and history and also home to the Penn Center, formerly the Penn School, one of the nation’s first schools for formerly enslaved people. In the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. often used the center as a meeting place.

“The value of the cultural heritage that exists in the area cannot be understated,” Jenkins said. “Having our school within walking distance to the Penn Center would be a monumental ability for scholars to really see the legacy of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor in St. Helena.”

St. Helena public middle and high school students are zoned to attend schools on Lady’s Island or in Beaufort.

“A majority of our scholars are going to be Gullah Geechee people,” said Victoria Smalls, who is a board member for the school. “It’s important to know who you are, where you come from, and that is going to have a profound effect on where you’re going.”

The school will be governed by a board of directors, like Smalls, and about half of them were born in or attended school in Beaufort County, according to Jenkins.

Year-round calendar

Charter schools’ curriculum must align with state standards, but Jenkins said the school is “borrowing heavily from Montessori practices.”

Although students will still have 180 instructional days, the same as in any state public schools, the academy will be open year round with four roughly 9-week quarters and two periods of required “intersession” throughout the school year.

During intersession, students will have workforce exploration or additional academic support from teachers. The school hasn’t finalized its list of partnerships but plans to include arts-focused organizations such as the Gullah Kinfolk Theater, culturally-focused organizations such as the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, natural resource-focused organizations such as Marshview Farmers, and civics-focused organizations like local delegate offices, according to Jenkins.

“This is a work three years in the making,” Jenkins said, explaining it started in July 2020 when she began speaking with the community about the school. “Just to be here, we are really, really passionate and excited about this.”

Parents who are interested can reach out to Jenkins via the school’s website: www.heritageacademysc.org.