“It was more than just education … it was life lessons that we were taught,” Dover said. “It was learning how to love each other and support each other and be there for each other. You can’t even put value on that.”
But Dover and other community members worry the developers don’t understand that. Dover said they have been rude and disrespectful, while simultaneously demanding the community show respect to them.
An advisory sign tells passersby to not trespass of risk prosecution on the side of the old Tobin Boyd Elementary School, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in the Red Top community.
Brian Turner, president and CEO of the Preservation Society of Charleston, who has been helping Red Top try to convince the developers to save the school, said he believes there’s a big cultural gulf between the developers and the community, and doesn’t think they anticipated the pushback they’re receiving.
Representatives at American Star Development declined to comment.
Charleston County Council Chairman Kylon Middleton, who represents the area, said at the May 8 planning and public works committee meeting he didn’t support requests from the county’s historic preservation commission to write a letter opposing the development and mitigation plans. He said the developer had the right to plan a development, and the school hasn’t been officially designated as a historic landmark.
In an effort to preserve the school, members of the Red Top community are trying to raise money to purchase the property from American Star Development. Dover said the developers refused to name their price at first but then shared a number with Dover after a few days, with the caveat that no one in Red Top can share the cost publicly.
Turner said the preservation society hopes the developers sell closer to the cost of what they’ve put into it; he said the buyers purchased the property for $360,000.
Red Top only has 30 days to raise money to try and buy the property the school sits on, with the deadline being July 13, according to Dover.
At the corner of Greenland and Hughes is the fenced off site of the former Tobin Boyd Elementary School, Wednesday, June 25, 2025.
Ideally, Red Top would be able to rehabilitate the building and use it as a community center, Dover said. But if the community isn’t able to conjure up enough money, she said the developer has offered a compromise for the development to continue: half an acre of the property, collecting oral histories of the Tobin-Boyd school from the Red Top community members who attended and $10,000.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
