Lessons aplenty from Hilton Head Christian
Is Hilton Head Island getting schooled?
No, but there are plenty of lessons to go around as Hilton Head Christian Academy announced Friday its plan to move to Bluffton in the near future.
The school with a special mission was born on the island in 1979. If ever an organization flew on a wing and a prayer, it was this grassroots uprising. It demanded total commitment by all involved to remain afloat from the time George and Mary Winn Lent pulled together a few families and opened the school in the Grace Community Church on Mathews Drive. Its first graduating class in 1984 had only one student. And now the Eagles are soaring to new heights.
Those are all reasons that this school seems a piece of the island’s very DNA: aim high, get busy, patch it together as needed, keep it alive, always improve and invite the world to come see.
For Hilton Head to lose something that vibrant — and vital to young families — will hurt.
But the school’s board is not cemented to a sentimental past and is rightly looking at what presents the best and brightest future for the institution. That is its obligation.
In Bluffton, the school can grow. It can use a 26-acre tract donated to it 15 years ago, before Bluffton’s growth soared. That’s twice the size of its current site on the north end of Hilton Head.
In Bluffton, it will be closer to today’s students and presumably those of the future. Enrollment recently tipped from a majority of islanders to a slight majority of Bluffton children. And Head of School Doug Langhals said leaders believe enrollment at the new site will expand from today’s 350 to 400 students to 600 or 700.
In Bluffton, it will fulfill a dream that has been kicked around to some degree since the 1990s. And with the sale of the current site, it will remain a unified campus for students in kindergarten through grade 12.
We wish the school godspeed, but for Hilton Head it is a sad moment.
It teaches us that the borderlines between local communities are becoming blurred. We must make sure that what’s good for Bluffton is good for Hilton Head, and vice versa. And what’s good for Lady’s Island is good for Beaufort, and vice versa. And what is good for Jasper County is good for Beaufort County, and vice versa. We must think as a whole.
Bluffton can learn from the booming growth years of Hilton Head that it must be proactive in protecting the quality of life. That means growth control, land acquisition, a secondary roads system, beefed up public safety, more parks, more environmental protections, more public access to the water, a disciplined and long-term capital improvements plan and a constant focus on the quality of life.
And on Hilton Head, the school’s announcement, coming on the heels of Sam’s Club pulling out for Bluffton, is another reminder that a new day has dawned on the Lowcountry. No longer is Hilton Head the sole center of jobs or housing in southern Beaufort County. No longer is golf the center of the universe. No longer do its buildings seem new — or in many cases, even occupied. And no longer does it seem so clear how Hilton Head should put its best foot forward to survive and thrive in a new landscape.
Like the bright-eyed school students, we’ve all got a lot to learn, and plenty of homework to do.
This story was originally published January 29, 2017 at 12:53 AM with the headline "Lessons aplenty from Hilton Head Christian."