Oceanside Collegiate Academy was ordered to close. Here's where it stands. (2024)

Oceanside Collegiate Academy in Mount Pleasant is fighting back against its authorizer's notice that it plans to close the school.

The academy has requested that its authorizer, the Charter Institute at Erskine, hold an appeal hearing so that school representatives can argue against its shutdown.

The hearing will take place June 5 at 10:30 a.m.

"The meeting will be hosted virtually. The link will be available on our website in accordance with SC FOIA," Ashley Epperson, chief of communications at the institute, said in an email.

The request comes six weeks after The Post and Courier published an investigation into the controversial history of Pinnacle Charter School Management, a Florida-based corporation that runs Oceanside, Legion Collegiate Academy in York County and Atlantic Collegiate Academy in Myrtle Beach.

The investigation found Pinnacle's founder, Michael D'Angelo, is a former Florida principal whose career was trailed by accusations of contentious relationships with his teachers and district leaders, alleged cheating scandals, lawsuits and other issues.

After Florida school districts denied 30 of his charter applications, D'Angelo and his colleagues started looking at South Carolina as a state where they could open new ventures.

Pinnacle's schools are dual enrollment schools, meaning students can take both high school and college-level courses. They have a modified school day, giving students extra time to focus on sports or other nonacademic activities.

They perform well academically and rank near the top in high school sports in the state almost every year. But The Post and Courier found that misconduct allegations have dogged the schools since their inception.

These included allegations of fraud, misappropriating public funds, giving vendor contracts to companies owned by high-ranking Pinnacle employees, failing to provide legally required services to some of a school's neediest students and other issues.

The institute threatened Oceanside with shutdown for years. It sent the school a notice of charter revocation on May 2, three weeks after the paper's investigation was published.

In a May 2 letter to Oceanside school board leaders, a copy of which the institute provided to The Post and Courier, the institute said the charter revocation will go into effect June 30 if the school does not appeal.

"The Board based its decision on the requirements of South Carolina law, and a comprehensive review of the School’s noncompliance of corrective action plans conducted by the Institute staff," the institute said.

The school's board of directors did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

Ricky Hazel, a spokesman for Pinnacle, declined to comment on the hearing.

"It's on (Oceanside's) board to handle this," he said.

Pinnacle is scheduled to open two new schools in the state in the fall.