Lexington County School District 1 is moving one of its principals as it prepares to open a new elementary school.

Jennifer Stanley, currently the principal at Lake Murray Elementary, is set to take over July 1 of next year as the principal at South Lake Elementary, the new-construction school the district is adding to its number for the 2024-25 school year.

The new school, located at 274 Bluefield Road, south of the Town of Lexington between Red Bank and Edmund, is still under construction, but is set to be complete in time to welcome its first students next year. The cost of building the school is $55 million.

At present, there is a lot happening in the school's construction process. According to the latest construction summary report, shared with the Chronicle, work is ongoing on widening S.C. Highway 6 near the school along with installing a retaining wall, roofing, brick masonry, fire sprinklers, and mechanical subsystems.

The school will consist of five wings, one servinging as the main entrance, one housing fourth and fifth grade, one for second and third grade, one for kindergarten and first grade, and one containing space for electives and the cafeteria.

Earlier this year, the district began working on naming the new elementary school, initially looking at incorporating significant landmarks near where the school would be placed. The landmarks included a blueberry farm, Bluefield Road, the spring that provided the name for Platt Springs Road and Bethany Church.

Early names considered included Blue Hill Elementary, Blue Height Elementary and Bluefield Elementary.

Going back to the drawing board, the naming committee bright forth two more names this spring – Berry Ridge Elementary and South Lake Elementary – with the school board unanimously going for South Lake.

Stanley was approved by the board as the first principal for the new school at the board’s Oct. 24 meeting.

According to a press release, which calls her “an enthusiastic leader and educator with more than 24 years of experience,” the principal's educational career has run entirely through Lexington 1. She began as a teaching assistant at Saxe Gotha Elementary, where she moved on to teaching fourth grade, which she did until 1999 when she moved to Red Bank Elementary. At Red BAnk, she taught second grade for four years before being promoted to assistant principal at Gilbert Elementary. She then moved to Oak Grove Elementary five years, where she also served as assistant principal.

She was promoted to serve as principal of Lake Murray Elementary in 2016.

The principal earned a bachelor’s in elementary education from Presbyterian College and a master’s in educational administration from the University of South Carolina. She is a member of the South Carolina Association of School Administrators and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.