OCA Calendar | 9/29/2025 7:15:00 PM

Mt. Pleasant, SC – On Sunday, Oceanside Collegiate Academy's management company, Pinnacle Charter Academies, as well as the school's board, accepted the resignation of Principal Christina Brown.
 
Brown made the difficult decision to step away from her duties at OCA for personal reasons.
 
"We would like to thank Christina for her decade of service to the students of Oceanside Collegiate Academy," OCA Board President Chris Swisher said. "She has been an important part of the growth of OCA from its early days in a temporary facility to its current growing campus. We are grateful for all she has done for Oceanside."
 
As an original Landshark, Brown's OCA career started in an old building in McClellanville with a small group of faculty members and students. They moved into their permanent home in Mt. Pleasant the next year, just days before students arrived.
 
It was always important to Brown for OCA to establish and build on traditions. Some of those traditions include the Walk of Champions to honor each state championship team, Spirit Days, Halloween costume days for staff, Senior Prank decorations with cup sculptures, Feeding Frenzy competition between the classes, especially epic games of musical chairs, shark or treat for Halloween, Café Chats with students and building on the family atmosphere at the school.
 
Regarding championships, since winning its first state title in girls golf in 2017, OCA has accumulated a total of 39 state championships, including an incredible 29 across 12 sports in the last four years.
 
On top of building the school culture, championships and traditions, Brown was instrumental in building the foundation for OCA students to have tremendous academic success. The school annually has a near, if not absolute, 100 percent graduation rate and just last year was ranked as the sixth best high school in South Carolina. Landshark graduates earn high honors at better than 50 percent and graduate with a 3.0 GPA or better at a 90 percent rate.
 
In addition, 97 percent of OCA students enrolled in college classes passed and receive credit for all their classes and 80 percent of OCA students are enrolled as full-time college students while still in high school. Last year, 137 of the 154 seniors received either Life, Hope or Palmetto Fellows scholarships and the graduating class received more than $11 million in total scholarships.
 
"From the very beginning, the relationships I've built with staff, students, families, and community members have shaped me in ways I will carry forever," Brown said. "My proudest accomplishments are not my own, they belong to you. I have found my greatest success in witnessing our students' achievements, in celebrating your accolades, and in watching the culture we built together grow stronger each year. Students have always been, and will always remain, my favorite part of this work—the reason I came to school each day with energy, positivity, and hope."
 
The OCA board moved quickly following Brown's resignation and has selected Pinnacle Charter Academies Director of Academics and Accountability Mike Lorenz to serve as Interim Principal to complete the 2025-26 school year.
 
"My focus at OCA is to ensure our students have the best atmosphere to thrive in a small, safe, family-centered, environment," Lorenz said. "My job over the next few months is not to drop the baton from Principal Brown and make sure the students have a stable environment to learn and grow while we conduct a national search for the next principal for the school.
 
"I want to assure our parents, students, faculty and staff that educating our students is our top priority and, along with the dedicated school board, we are going to work to find the best possible leader to take this school to even higher levels of success. We are not going to rush this search because we want to make sure we get the right person for this position."
 
Lorenz, a University of Wisconsin graduate (B.A. in History), also owns a Post Baccalaureate from Concordia University as well as a master's degree in technology education from Lesley University in Boston, Mass.
 
Lorenz, who is an educator at heart, taught history and social studies in his home state of Wisconsin while also focusing on work with at-risk students. He and his family moved to South Carolina in 2014 where he continued to teach social studies, while also teaching robotics, at Hilton Head Island High. He also coached football, basketball and strength training while earning a Master of Educational Leadership from the American College of Education. He was promoted to Assistant Principal at Hilton Head Island in 2017.
 
Lorenz joined the Pinnacle family in 2021 as Project Manager for a new school in Horry County. He built what is now Atlantic Collegiate Academy from the ground up, with the school opening in a temporary facility in 2023 before moving into its permanent home in 2024. He served as the school's principal for those first two years before taking on the larger role of guiding all Pinnacle Charter Academies' school leaders this past summer.
 
About Oceanside Collegiate Academy: Oceanside Collegiate Academy (OCA), located in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., serves high school students in a safe, small and family-centered setting. Our students seek the opportunity and challenge of rigorous curriculum, high academic standards and elite athletics while earning up to two years of college credit. OCA serves students in grades 9-12 using an honors curriculum in 9th and 10 grades with a dual enrollment curriculum in 11th and 12th grades Learn more about OCA by visiting our website at OceansideCollegiate.Academy and by following us on social media on Facebook, Instagram and X. For video content, visit our YouTube channel.