In October, the county's Zoning Board of Appeals rejected district plans to build the $28 million school in the Dale area and district officials need a written copy of the order before they can appeal the decision.
The written order still hadn't been filed as of Tuesday.
The school has been a controversial topic for the past two years as district officials have fought to get through the county's approval process.
District attorney Ken Childs told the school board Tuesday that if the zoning board's decision is not filed by Dec. 15, the district can take the legal measure of having a judge force the filing of the written order.
"If we don't have the order by the fifteenth, we will go to court," he said.
Childs told the board that a written order of a zoning board decision must be filed within 30 days of its decision. But the zoning board's rules state that the county must send copies of the order to "each party of interest" as soon as possible after the zoning board chairman has submitted an order of the decision. The rules do not mention a 30-day time limit.
Last month, the school board voted to give Childs full authority to take necessary legal action on plans for the high school.
Whether the district requests a new hearing from the zoning board at its Dec. 15 meeting depends on what the written order says, Childs said after the school board meeting Tuesday.
Childs can also decide to send the issue to circuit court or seek pre-litigation mediation.
Bluffton school board member Laura Bush said Childs' proposed Dec. 15 deadline isn't soon enough.
"I think we need to tighten up on that date," she said.
Childs responded that he would call county attorney Kelly Golden on Tuesday night in an effort to move up the deadline.
"We will redouble our efforts to get that order," he said.
Bush and St. Helena Island board member Michael Rivers said they are concerned that there is only one more board meeting this year before newly elected board members, both of which have expressed opposition to the school, are seated.
"We've been tap dancing about this since 2002," Rivers said, adding that the board should make a decision immediately to purchase the Keans Neck Road land for the proposed school.
Bush said the board can always call a special meeting before the end of the year to discuss legal steps on the high school.
Childs repeated to the board several times that because this is a controversial issue, the district should be careful and deliberate while moving ahead with legal plans in order to avoid losing ground with the public in the future.
"We need to have a responsible course of action that will demand the respect of the majority of the community," he said.
The district must make sure that it has the zoning board's written order in hand before going to court, Bush said.
"It is in the best interest of the board if it goes to court that we have shown we have done everything we could do," she said.
Also Tuesday, the school board voted 7-4 in favor of deciding at their Dec. 14 meeting whether to build the district office on 22 acres the district owns next to Okatie Elementary School. Last month, Superintendent Herman Gaither recommended that board members terminate the project.
Board members opposed were Richard Tritschler, Rick Caporale, Ron Speaks and Michael Rivers.
Don Altman, who oversees construction projects for the district, told board members that because the costs of materials, especially steel, have risen so dramatically, the $5.1 million approved for the project is no longer enough. It would take an additional $1.1 million to complete the building, he said.
Gaither's recommendation to terminate the project came just after the district had reached an agreement in pre-litigation mediation that could allow the district to move forward after a two-year delay.