Mattress storein Summers Corner, SC

Managing growth was an essential and recurring topic during the Dorchester School District Two State of the District address Friday, Feb. 2, at the Summer Corner Performing Arts Center.

DD2 Board of Trustees Chair Dr. Ashley Wimberly told the crowd that growth is good but has presented some challenges.

“The definition of growth is the process of increasing in size or development. Some synonyms are advancement, expansion, gain and improvement, all words that bring a positive connotation,” she said. “And yet the issue of growth for us is certainly a difficult one. It is creating some challenges and anxiety about how we will manage the consequences.”

Wimberly said there is some fear surrounding the funding for the changes needed to accommodate the growth DD2 is experiencing. Still, she urged people to also look at the good that comes with growth and the idea that physical growth, just as personal growth, can lead to remarkable things.

“Research shows we often judge normal human experiences that come with growth, like nervousness, stress and discomfort, too harshly,” she said. “While our inclination might be to avoid them, we can become better people and live a richer life if we embrace them. The physical growth we’re facing comes with challenges, just as any other type of growth does. Navigating it will require effort, determination and the willingness to step out of our comfort zones. It may also involve facing setbacks, making mistakes and experiencing temporary failures. But it is through these challenges that we grow the most; as the saying goes, in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

DD2 Superintendent Dr. Shane Robbins said managing the district’s growth has been, is and will be difficult. He said Sand Hill Elementary and Beech Hill Elementary are at 125% capacity because of the new housing construction in those areas.

“In Dorchester County alone, over a 10-year forecast, over 10,000 (housing) units are on the books to be built,” Robbins said. “Now, lots of things can happen that could change that forecast. But what I’m seeing from the state level is that South Carolina is the No. 1 fastest-growing state in the United States right now, and the Lowcountry is the fastest-growing area in South Carolina.”

Robbins discussed four ways to address enrollment growth, from the fastest and least expensive to the longest and most costly: rezoning, learning cottages, brick-and-mortar classroom additions and new construction.

“The first three options, we need to do most of that internally with our own budget to some degree,” Robbins said. “The fourth option must be voter-approved as a referendum.”

The rezoning option involves moving areas where children go to a school that is at or over capacity to a school that is not at or over capacity.

“This may increase drive times for some people,” Robbins said. “Because of the way Dorchester County is developed, it could actually mean shorter drive times for some people. But rezoning is our first option, and it has no costs.”

The second option is installing learning cottages.

“I say learning cottages, and that’s just a fancy word for trailers,” Robbins said. That option takes about 12 to 18 months because the cottages have to be ADA-compliant, and we have to run utilities to them.

The third option, brick-and-mortar additions onto existing buildings, could take up to 24 months and is more expensive than adding the learning cottages. The fourth option, new construction, could take up to 36 months, depending on the design and permitting processes and whether land is available.

“New construction is something we cannot do as a district. We cannot afford that, and we do not have the revenue for that,” Robbins said. “This one requires a referendum by the voters. There is no state funding for school districts in South Carolina other than for those that are consolidating.”

The option for DD2 is the district’s 8% tax rate authority, meaning the tax rate of 8% can be raised at any time without approval request to maintain buildings. Robbins said the money can also be used for technology or infrastructure upgrades.

“We maintain more than 30 buildings in the district,” Robbins said, including 25 school buildings, the district office, the transportation depot, the community learning center, and the alternative school.

Robbins said the district has access to a couple of small tax-increment financing (TIF) funds, but a referendum may be the best way to get funding.

“We haven’t had a major referendum in Dorchester District Two for 12 years,” Robbins said. “That is why we are in a very good position to possibly ask the voters for that and to help us with our growth issues.”

DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - As schools across the Lowcountry recess for the summer, Dorchester School District Two is looking at how to plan out its anticipated future growth.

Superintendent Dr. Shane Robbins said they are projecting an additional 16,000 new students to enroll in the district in the next 10 years. That’s a growth of anywhere between 1,000 to 1,500 students each year.

“When Ashley Ridge High School opened, I think it opened with about 800 students,” Robbins said. “Today, they have about 27, 28-hundred students, with that number growing every single day. That’s why we look at the rezoning options for us to make sure that we’re filling all of our buildings before we try to come to the community for tax dollars to build a new facility.”

He said most of the growth is centered around the Beech Hill and Summers Corner areas, with 17,000 homes set to be built across the entire county.

“We don’t know what the build out timeline is on those,” Robbins said. “That can be over the course of 10 years, but what we do know is these homes are being built in about 120 days, and they’re being occupied by families that have school-age children.”

The district’s latest projections show if no schools were built in that time, over 3,000 students would be zoned for Sand Hill Elementary School alone.

Robbins estimates the district may need as many as six new elementary schools, one or two new middle schools and a new high school to cover demand.

He also expressed interest in holding a long-range planning session regarding their future with the county this summer.

“We’d love to engage with them on that,” Dorchester County Director of Planning and Zoning Kiera Reinertsen said. “We’re actively working on our comprehensive plan right now, we’re seeking feedback from the community and school district as well on growth issues, concerns and needs.”

In the meantime, Robbins said they will have to bring in mobile classrooms and are looking at shifting attendance lines for some schools to address current overcrowding issues.

Robbins said the attendance lines won’t be changed for the upcoming school year, but they will have discussions about potential changes for the 2024-2025 school year.

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SUMMERS CORNER, SC (WCIV) — Imagine a real Hallmark Movie.

That's what a Summers Corner home looks like this holiday season. It's the type of decked-out holiday display to immediately catch the eyes of everyone driving by. It's hard to look left or right without seeing lights or decorations.

The most unique part is that each item has a story. Some of them traveled by car for nearly 17 hours in order to make it to the Lowcountry, and others would only fit in a rental car. Even the Grinch himself, can't steal this Christmas spirit.

"I think it’s wonderful what they are doing and if this was a decoration competition. I would say they win," neighbor Stella Taber said.

Reindeers, snowmen, and even Santa Claus are seasonal neighbors.

"Santa actually writes back to the kids, and the hot cocoa, and all of the treats they are so lovely to put together for everyone in the neighborhood," Neighbor Karina Aymerich said.

It's a holiday tradition for the O'Hea family. Brandy O'Hea said, "It started with one decoration and led to another."

Though, O'Hea said a new HOA wants to tone down the merry and bright.

"We got a letter that was dated 16th of November stating it was our second letter, we were in violation because we had decorations on the adjoining property. At that time of the letter, there was nothing out there," she said.

The letter asked the O'Hea family to have a "reasonable number of holiday and religious lights." It also said a fine of $25 dollars has been applied to their account. A third violation is 50 dollars.

"I don’t know what the definition of reasonable is," O'Hea said.

Some neighbors said it's a display of holiday magic.

"My son here Zachary has autism. He doesn't like gifts. A couple of years ago we were walking, and we walked past every single day by that pig that didn’t say Zach’s pig. We came back up a week later and it said Zach’s pig on it. I don’t like to admit this but I started tearing up because it hit me in my heart that these wonderful people are doing it not just for them, they are doing it for other people," neighbor Dino Pustalka said.

It's a gift that keeps on giving.

"This is the last thing that happens this year that we have hope. That we can feel a little bit or normality. We have had a horrible year. This is bringing everything that was normal back," Aymerich added.

Homeowners said they don't plan to take it down.

"I want the HOA to come here and see the joy that these kids have...running through taking pictures. Hugging the unicorns. And then see what it's like if you take it away from them," O'Hea said.

Kids in Summers Corner shared their personal display favorites with hopes of keeping joy alive this holiday season.

"I like the mermaids, and the angel. I think the mermaid is guidance and the angel is hope," Taber said.

There is a petition online that asks the HOA to change its mind about the Summers Corner holiday display.

ABC News 4 called the homeowners association and left a voicemail. An email was also sent to the office for a response to the neighborhood complaints. As of Wednesday evening, there has been no response. The story will be updated as soon as there is.

SUMMERVILLE — Some Dorchester County residents spent the first two weeks of September without receiving any mail, and they're still uncertain if the problem has been resolved.

On the outskirts of Summerville, homeowners in the new Azalea Ridge portion of the Summers Corner neighborhood have been experiencing ongoing issues with mail delivery, emergency assistance and school registration.

Residents were told the problem comes from a mistake made when the ZIP codes were being realigned. The mistake has resulted in mail delays and packages being sent to wrong addresses across town.

One of those residents, Livia Perez, said her family recently had issues with registering their kids for school and getting help from the Dorchester County Fire Rescue after their carbon monoxide detector went off.

"It took 25 minutes for the fire department to get to our house," she said.

The Perez family had to contact the department to let them know about the Ridgeville and Summerville address mix-up.

They bought the home with the original understanding that it would have a Summerville address. When they went to close on the home the day after Memorial Day, that's when they were informed the ZIP code was now a Ridgeville one.

The deed to their home lists the address as Ridgeville. The change also led to a $500 annual increase in their home insurance costs.

Jason Byham, the local division president for Lennar, the developers over Summers Corner, said in 2015 the U.S. Postal Service approved all of the development to be in the 29485 Summerville ZIP code.

The Ridgeville ZIP code change was done without Lennar being notified in advance. Lennar changed the deeds to Ridgeville to allow residents to close on their homes and move in.

Byham said they were informed that the change was a mistake around USPS overlooking the 2015 agreement.

“It unfortunately caused major disruption in homeowners' lives," he said.

Lennar was able to reaffirm with USPS the Summerville address. Lennar is also taking on the costs of changing residents' deeds back to Summerville.

Rick Badie, a USPS spokesman in South Carolina, said some of the address data provided to USPS representatives was incorrect and that's what ultimately led to the mishap.

Badie didn't confirm who sent the incorrect data.

"The issue is being resolved and we regret any inconvenience to our customers," he said.

Some residents are still apprehensive as to whether the situation has been handled. Perez said it's because they've been hearing that since May.

Their biggest concern is with the election coming up.

Some of the postal workers are aware of the situation so they have been able to successfully complete some deliveries.

Other times, some of the mail is sent to the Oakbrook Post Office and some is sent to the Ridgeville one. Residents have also received delivery notifications from Amazon with photos of packages delivered across town.

“We’re definitely not getting all of our mail," Perez said.

SUMMERVILLE — When eighth grade history teacher Charity Carpenter first walked into her classroom in the new East Edisto Middle School on Aug. 8, she had to leave again and walk around the building to work off her excitement.

It was the Monday before school was set to start, and the hallways still smelled of new paint. Other teachers wheeled carts and trolleys full of equipment and school supplies into classrooms. Friends greeted each other, asking about each other's summers or commenting on the new school.

Around the corner from her classroom, Carpenter bumped into fellow teacher Amy Baldwin, who was directing students from her Gateway to Technology class how to unload her computers and robotics equipment. The students had been in Baldwin's class in previous years at Oakbrook Middle School and had volunteered to help her unpack her new classroom.

"How's your room looking?" Baldwin asked Carpenter.

"I just walked in and I just had to leave my stuff there and take a walk," Carpenter said. "I was just overwhelmed."

East Edisto is the biggest school she's ever been in, Carpenter told The Post and Courier. And the numbers back her up. The 120,000-square-foot school cost $31 million and took 16 months to complete. It's located off S.C. Highway 61 behind Beech Hill Elementary. At full capacity, it can hold 1,000 students.

When school officially begins on Aug. 15, it will welcome 850.

"We're pretty close to what we can hold," Principal Brion Rutherford said, adding that it's located in the Oakbrook area, one of the fastest-growing parts of Dorchester County.

"There are a number of new neighborhoods going in," he said. "We'll be at our capacity pretty quickly."

He and Shane Robbins, the new superintendent of Dorchester School District 2, said the new school is a factor of growth not only throughout the district but also in the Oakbrook area near the Ashley River.

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A superintendent for 15 years at various districts, Robbins is no stranger to new school construction.

"There is so much excitement for students, families, teachers and staff members to move into a brand-new structure and make it their own and their home," Robbins said.

'Exploding' with growth

Nestled in the Oakbrook area, the school is surrounded by large and growing housing developments like Legend Oaks Plantations and Summers Corner, which are adding thousands of homes in the coming years.

Cheyenne and Brennan Ledyard live in Drayton Oaks, a small subdivision about a three-minute drive from East Edisto Middle. Like many residents in the area, they're still fairly new, having moved in when the neighborhood went up about two years ago.

They say the Oakbrook area, particularly the neighborhoods on either side of Highway 61, is "exploding."

"We're having tremendous growth on this side," Cheyenne said.

Last year, their son Hudson attended Gregg Middle School, on the other side of Dorchester Road and the Ashley River. Now he's starting seventh grade at East Edisto.

"He is very excited because this bus arrives about 20 minutes later than what he had to ride last year," Brennan said with a laugh.

She and Cheyenne said they feel the middle school is warranted, especially since there are already two elementary schools in the area, Beech Hill and Sand Hill. Their only concern is that traffic on Highway 61 might be worse in the mornings now.

Down Highway 61 in Summers Corner, Michelle Cheslek was riding her bike with her 6-year-old daughter Olivia on a recent afternoon. And even though Olivia still has several years before she goes to middle school, Cheslek said she's already relieved there's one that close.

"Otherwise I think she would have been going to Gregg, which is a little farther away," Cheslek said.

Like the Ledyards, Cheslek said the area is growing. Her family just closed on their house in May, and behind them, construction is underway on more houses.

Growth in the school district isn't anything new. DD2's student population has grown from around 16,000 students in the 2000-01 school year to more than 25,000 last year.

Managing growth

Despite population growth in Summerville, the district's student population saw a slight dip during the pandemic, according to DD2. During the 2019-20 school year, there were 26,194 students at the school. This past year, there were 25,404.

"If you look at our numbers from the end of last school year, they replicate our numbers from the 2014-15 school year," Robbins said, referencing a year with 25,175 students.

Robbins said that's a factor of the pandemic.

"That's a symptom of students that stayed in a virtual environment not associated with the school or possibly went the home-school route, and ... that wasn't a Dorchester 2 issue or trend," he said. "That's something we saw across the state and honestly across the country."

While those numbers have started to come back, Robbins said the bigger change is where the students are.

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"What I think you're seeing is a shift where geographically people are living in the county and where the population shifts have occurred," he said. "For us, there is going to be growth that we're going to rebound from post-COVID, so we need to have a long-term facilities study completed or updated."

Robbins said East Edisto is about the average size of a middle school, and he doesn't want it to get much larger than 1,000 students. He does believe the district will see more growth in the coming years and should have a plan to deal with that.

But he would rather utilize space in schools throughout the district before building any more schools.

"When you see numbers shift like that ... you look at the occupancy of each facility and, in lieu of building a new structure because one structure is at capacity, you look at, 'OK, how can I adjust the attendance lines to make sure all my structures are at capacity before I have to go to the taxpayers and ask for money to build for more structures?' "

In other words, the district will look at occupancy levels at each school and send students to schools with more room.

That can be "emotional" for the community, he said, which is why the district should have a formalized plan in place. That would be an involved process that looks at everything from county population projections to roads, bridges and "potential obstacles" along bus routes.

"There's a lot that goes into play when you look at making a decision on what's going to work best, but the overall goal is to try to fully maximize all of our facilities so that we don't have to consistently add on and build new structures because there's growth in one particular geographical area," Robbins said.

Earlier this year, district officials reported East Edisto was on track to be over-capacity within a few years of its opening. Robbins said that should only be a problem if the district doesn't put those plans in place.

"There is a lot of growth in that area," he said. "If we stayed status quo and we didn't look at those things, absolutely it would end up being overcrowded."

New opportunities for students

Baldwin is well aware of the growth. Not only will this be her 23rd year teaching in the district, but she attended DD2 schools from kindergarten to high school. That growth brings more opportunities for students, she said.

Take her subject, Gateway to Technology, which covers STEM subjects like robotics, design and engineering.

"That was such a small class back (when I first started teaching), and now it's bloomed and blossomed and we have all these engineering avenues," she said. "I have a sixth grader entering school, and the number of choices of classes, things like piano, that didn't exist when I was a student ... So just the opportunities our district has brought as it's grown has been really wonderful."

Rutherford said he had some input on the classrooms and other features while construction was underway, such as what kind of designs and furniture would best promote collaboration in STEM classrooms and where best to put electives so that they're located close to the sixth grade hallway.

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One important aspect of the design was safety features, he said. Those include cameras, alarm systems that will alert people when exterior doors are left open and a crosswalk across Highway 61 that will be manned during school drop-off and dismissal. There will also be a dedicated office for the school's social worker to help address students' mental health needs.

Rutherford echoed Baldwin's excitement for the array of opportunities — and praised Gateway to Technology in particular. He said Baldwin and the program she set up at Oakbrook have won multiple awards throughout the state. The same goes for chorus teacher Maurice Burgess, he said, who will run East Edisto's fine arts programs.

"I might be partial to this, but I think we have the best teachers in the school district, if not the Lowcountry," Rutherford said.

Reach Isabelle Altman at 843-666-7159.