By Delayna Earley
The Island News
Love, education, affirmation and defend – otherwise referred to by Broad River Elementary School principal Constance Goodwine-Lewis as “L.E.A.D.”
These are the four tenants that have influenced and molded her into the principal that she is today.
“That is my guiding principle for what I do each and every day and my ‘why,’” Goodwine-Lewis said. “I know that if we show them love and provide them a family-like atmosphere and we educate them well, it can change the trajectory of their life and even their family. That is why I’m here. That is why I show up every day.”
Goodwine-Lewis said that she has always been taught to go where people are happy to see you, so she said it is extremely important for her to make Broad River a place where the students know that people are happy to see them.
She said that school should be like walking into “a big warm hug,” and that is her goal.
“L.O.V.E. is also an acronym at Broad River,” Goodwine-Lewis said. “It means leadership, opportunity, vision and expectation of excellence. When we lead, when we provide opportunity, when we have vision and when we expect excellence our students can live off of village energy, and we are that village.”
Goodwine-Lewis was recently honored as the Beaufort County School District’s (BCSD) Elementary Principal of the Year for 2023.
This is the first award of this magnitude that she has received in her 24 years in education in Beaufort County.
She was born and raised in Beaufort and got her undergraduate degree in Elementary Education and her first Master’s in special education from Clemson University.
From 2000 to 2009, Goodwine-Lewis worked as a teacher, and later as an administrator, at Joseph S. Shanklin Elementary, St. Helena Elementary, Coosa Elementary, Prichardville Elementary and Hilton Head Island School for the Creative Arts before landing at Broad River Elementary School.
Goodwine-Lewis has been the principal at Broad River since 2009.
While she knew that she had been nominated, Goodwine-Lewis did not think that she would win.
The day that the winners were announced at the annual three-day Summer Institute professional development conference, Goodwine-Lewis decided that she would take the time to get caught up on work at her office.
Her executive director called her to find out where she was and told her that the communications officer Candace Bruder said she should get there.
It was then that she began to think there was a chance she was chosen, so she jumped in her car and tried to rush, as safely as possible, to the event.
“Traffic was horrendous,” Goodwine-Lewis said. “They tried to delay everything as much as they could to give me a chance, but traffic was just not on my side.”
Her husband, who is the athletic director, behavior management specialist and head basketball coach at Hilton Head Island Middle School, was there and ended up accepting the award for her.
“I felt like it was the Grammy’s and he had to announce that I could not be there, but he would accept the award on my behalf,” said Goodwine-Lewis
When she arrived back at school, the staff had already changed the marquee, wrapped her parking space, and put a sign on her office door.
She jokingly called the staff members a “mess” for going through the trouble of decorating, and they responded by saying, “You better be glad we didn’t have any more time.”
Goodwine-Lewis said that while receiving a good education is very important, one of the most important things in her life is love.
“I have a great family and family support,” Goodwine-Lewis said. “I had a lot of people who loved and supported me and I still do.”
No matter what, Goodwine-Lewis says she wants her students to have that as well.
Delayna Earley lives in Beaufort with her husband, two children and Jack Russell. She formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She joined The Island News in 2022. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
