Bright Oak Preschool Academy is an innovative preschool in Johns Island / Charleston, SC committed to educating and enriching the hearts and minds of young learners. Inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach®, Bright Oak offers a supportive learning environment for children 6 weeks to 5 years (pre-kindergarten) that fosters self-discovery, critical thinking and creativity through an emergent, child-led curriculum. We believe it’s the everyday, hands-on experiences that offer enriching educational opportunities for young children and that each child should be an active participant in his or her own learning.
Bright Oak Preschool Academy is a school for early childhood learners centered in the heart of Johns Island, SC. Founded in 2021, Bright Oak aims to provide the highest quality care and education available for children ages 6 weeks – 5 years starting in Summer 2023 at our new Maybank Highway location.
Bright Oak Preschool Academy was founded by Audrey Tamekazu, Spencer Turner and Merli Turner. Audrey was a CPA for most of her career before taking a position as Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Head of School for Finance and Operations at an historical independent school in Charleston. Spencer has spent most of his career as a successful entrepreneur. Merli spent a significant amount of her career in social services helping adults and children. She later transitioned into child care both independently and with a local preschool.
Before there was the name Bright Oak, there was an idea. Call it by chance, fate, or destiny, the Partners found each other in the summer of 2019. Audrey and Merli met while working at a local preschool and their shared passion for teaching sparked a friendship. Independently and unbeknownst to each other, both were exploring their desires to create a school for their own. Merli shared with Spencer that her new friend and coworker had, for quite some time, been planning to start her own preschool. It was a natural thing for Spencer to suggest a partnership for Merli and Audrey because of the belief that strong teams are what produce desirable outcomes. The idea that together they could create not only a safe and enriching learning environment but a company culture that supported all staff and the greater community, well that was just too big and too exciting a possibility to ignore.
The work began. There were months of meetings and long talks about educational philosophies, belief systems, priorities, financial strategy, culture, generosity, team building, and more, that Audrey endearingly called “marital counseling”. Although excited by the prospect of building something special together, it was not lost on the Partners that it would not be easy, it would require hard work, sacrifice, compromise, and being linked together, like a marriage, indefinitely. With the weight of that reality, the Partners worked diligently to vet one another and make sure this foundation on which they would build their school was as healthy and strong as The Angel Oak.
Over the next two years from early 2020 to February 2022 when they broke ground on their new Maybank Hwy. location, the Partners worked together to flush out all ideas, fully vet all opportunities, and established the Bright Oak Preschool Academy brand. This was made possible by the diligent work of a host of extended team members: n. Snipes Design, Wolf & Wolf, The Beach Company, Ferrara-Buist Contractors, C. Baker Engineering, The Middleton Group, and United Community Bank, among others. The work was intensive, yet well worth it for the opportunity to serve their community.