Bigger classes? Redistricting? Build anyway? What does future hold for Beaufort Co. schools?

Beaufort County voters overwhelmingly rejected the school board's $76 million referendum in Saturday's special election, putting the board in the unpopular position of selecting a short-term overcrowding solution among a list of options most parents oppose.

And the board already appears divided on next steps to address growing student enrollment in Bluffton.

District officials project nearly 250 more students to enroll in Beaufort County schools next year and growth in Bluffton to continue climbing for the next several years.

“Every two years, you grow another school,” superintendent Jeff Moss said at a recent town hall meeting on Hilton Head Island.

Board chairman Earl Campbell said Monday that his personal preference for a short-term solution would be to purchase more mobile classrooms.

In December, the board voted to add mobile classrooms at River Ridge Academy and Pritchardville Elementary for next school year. But even with the mobiles, district officials' projections for the overcrowded schools show both schools operating above 100 percent capacity. The district says an optimal school capacity is 85 percent.

Remembering his days as an assistant principal, board member Bill Payne said he was against more mobiles. Instead, he said he preferred paying for some projects out of the board's “8 percent” budget, which doesn’t require voter approval.

"We cannot afford to wait another six months to get started (on construction)," he said Monday.

But Campbell questioned if the board's "8 percent" funds had enough money to do some of the projects the board asked for in its Saturday referendum.

The funding source has typically been reserved for routine maintenance items, such as roof replacements and HVAC upgrades. Diverting money from maintenance items to fund large-scale construction projects — as has already been done by the board in the building of May River High School and Whale Branch Early College High School's auditorium and gymnasium — will take a toll on some aging facilities.

Bluffton Elementary’s HVAC renovation, for example, has been pushed off since 2012, according to district facilities, planning and construction officer Robert Oetting.

Meanwhile, at least two other board members, David Striebinger and Joseph Dunkle, are resurrecting the idea of hiring a third-party consultant to assess the district’s capital needs, a proposal they attempted last fall, but failed to secure a majority of votes.

“I hate to spend money on that but it deals directly with the heart of the issue, which is confidence,” Striebinger said, referring to the public's trust in the board and the superintendent.

Striebinger said he preferred holding another referendum after the November 2018 election, when he and six other board seats are up for election.

The board could also decide to increase class sizes or redraw attendance lines that would change which schools some students attend.

Another option the board could explore is changing which schools serve which grades. For example, a lower-capacity elementary school may become a K-8 school to reduce overcrowding at a middle school, as was briefly discussed last fall for the cluster of Hilton Head schools.

Board members have said a significant change like that would require more extensive planning than some of the other options and wouldn’t be implemented until the 2019-20 school year at the earliest.

Board member Evva Anderson declined to say which options she personally preferred, saying instead she wanted to come together "as a team" to make a decision.

Board member Mary Cordray also declined to say which option she was leaning toward, saying it was the superintendent and district staff's role to present proposals to the board for evaluation.

In response to a phone call for comment from The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette, Moss instead sent a written statement through district spokesman Jim Foster laying out options that have already been presented and then left it to the board to decide: "We know our parents don’t want larger classes or constant rezoning of their children or increasing purchases of mobile classrooms. We also need to provide Career and Technology Education opportunities for our students. Our Board of Education will have to reassess. Ultimately it will be up to them to determine how we move forward.”

Moss said last week that the school board will have a “post-referendum” discussion at their two-day work session slated for Friday and Saturday.

Anderson, who represents portions of the fast-growing town of Bluffton, said she is dismayed by Saturday's defeat.

"I’m really, really sorry for our kids and teachers," she said. "I’m sad for my community. And I’m worried because I think this is going to put us in an ugly situation for the next several years. "

This story was originally published April 23, 2018 at 7:05 PM with the headline "Bigger classes? Redistricting? Build anyway? What does future hold for Beaufort Co. schools?."