State revokes support for St. Helena school. Low enrollment, ‘poor board leadership’ cited
A charter school oversight board has ended the state’s funding for a St. Helena Island charter school less than a year after it opened its doors to students with a place-based learning model in the heart of the Gullah-Geechee community.
The South Carolina Public Charter School Board of Trustees, which oversees charter schools, voted 8-0 June 12 to revoke its charter contract with Sea Island Heritage Academy, ending its endorsement for the school and financial support.
Low enrollment, and poor attendance at meetings of the school’s board, were two reasons cited for the decision to close the school effective June 30.
Alana Jenkins Marchel, Sea Island Heritage Academy’s executive director, said she was heartbroken but committed to continuing the charter school in some form.
As a result of the board’s decision, Sea Island Heritage, which was operating in temporary modular facilities on Lady’s Island, must close by June 30, leaving 80 local students who were enrolled for the upcoming school year to find other arrangements.
“We wish their efforts well as to where they go from here.” said Cyndi Mosteller, chairwoman of the board of trustees, said after the vote. “We do, because those precious children are the things that we are here for.”
The South Carolina Public Charter School District authorizes and funds K-12 charter schools, which are tuition-free and operate independently from local school districts, giving them more flexibility when it comes to finances, personnel, scheduling and curriculum. Statewide, there are 45 charter schools with 20,600 students.
Sea Island Heritage Academy was the first charter school on St. Helena Island, home to one of the largest Gullah/Geechee communities in the coastal U.S. It was a culmination of four years of planning, fundraising, hundreds of interviews with local residents and what executive director and founder Jenkins Marchel called a rallying cry from the community for equitable access to education that celebrated Gullah Geechee heritage.
The state approved the 6-12 school in April 2023. Enrollment the first year was projected at 150.
But the school, which opened for 6th through 8th grades in August 2024, drew only 40 students and Jenkins Marchel said under enrollment was a factor in the state board’s decision because it made the school unsustainable long-term.
“Heartbreaking is not enough of a word to describe the way this feels,” Jenkins Marchel said of the revocation.
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However, Jenkins Marchel added, school officials had lobbied the state for “grace,” asking that probation be imposed instead of a revocation. She noted that low enrollment is not uncommon for a first-year charter school, and the number of students was set to double to 80 for the upcoming school year. The school, Jenkins Marchel added, had secured $1.1 million in philanthropic support.
The first vote to revoke the charter came in April.
During the June 12 meeting of the Public Charter School District Board of Trustees in Columbia, Deputy Supt. John Payne noted nobody from the school was present for the revocation hearing.
“As a result, we find their board’s lack of attendance is acquiescence to the proposed action of the notice of evocation that was submitted to the school on on April 18, 2025,” Payne said.
Trustee Dexter WJ Davis called the situation “a reflection of poor board leadership.”
“As you read through these documents where there were three members present, no members present,” Davis said. “And I’m sure they could have a virtual option. I think this is a learning lesson for all charter schools that are out there.”
That lesson, he said, is that charter schools must be “board led.”
Jenkins Marchel said “we had some turnover” on the board but membership was stabilizing. School officials did not attend the June 12 meeting, she said, because an appeal had already been submitted in writing. School officials also were aware that the charter board staff already was recommending the revocation to the board of trustees, she said.
Jenkins Marchel founded the school calling on her teaching expertise earned while working 15 years in New York charter schools. The education at Sea Islands, she said in May 2024, would be rooted in the landscape and people and traditions of St. Helena, with personalized, relevant lessons “wrapped up in where you are from.”
She says the school was able to raise $1.6 in private donations for every $1 receive in public money while achieving what she described as “incredible” academic results. She hopes to continue the work at the school, maybe via a different model. “We’re not in anyway shape or form finished with this work,” Jenkins Marchel said.
The state gave the local school about $500,000 during its first year of operation, she said.
Brad Henry, a spokesman for the South Carolina Public Charter School District, said the Board of Trustees voted to permanently close Sea Islands Heritage Academy on June 30, “due to not fulfilling their charter contract. The school was fully funded in accordance with the state aid to classrooms formula yet suffered from low enrollment.”
This story was originally published July 23, 2025 at 10:47 AM.
