Broward Superintendent Howard Hepburn on Friday recommended the closure of seven schools as the district moves forward with a plan to downsize to save millions of dollars in the face of a strained budget.
The final vote on the recommendations will be made in January and changes approved would be effective in the 2026-27 school year.
The schools on the cutting slate are among the most under-enrolled in the district, which is the nation's sixth-largest with more than 236,00 students and some 300 schools.
" We cannot continue to spend money on buildings that we could spend on the students we have or the students we want to win back," said Broward School Board member Allen Zeman during a special meeting on Monday.
Broward has 10,000 fewer students than it did last year, digging a budget hole of $94 million in the district, which gets government funding based on student headcount. In five years, Broward County Public Schools is looking at a projected loss of over 25,000 students, according to district data.
The closures are part of the multi-phase plan called 'Redefining Our Schools' intended to mitigate the under-enrollment problem. It involves adding new programs, combining schools, boundary adjustments, school closures and repurposing school sites.
READ MORE: Broward takes another step towards downsizing district through school closures, consolidations
Competition has been staunch for public school districts in the wake of rising school choice options, with many parents opting for charter or private schools, facilitated by the expansion of school vouchers. There are also less school-aged children coming into the district. With less students and more rivals, the stakes are high for schools of all types.
The schools affected are:
- Sunshine Elementary School in Miramar. Current students will be consolidated into Fairway Elementary School.
- Panther Run Elementary School in Pembroke Pines. Current students will be consolidated into Chapel Trail and Silver Palms elementary schools.
- Palm Cove Elementary School in Pembroke Pines. Current students will be consolidated into Lakeside and Pines Lakes elementary schools.
- North Fork Elementary in Fort Lauderdale. Current students will be consolidated into Croissant Park, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall and Walker elementary schools.
- Plantation Middle School in Plantation. Current students will be consolidated into Plantation High School to serve sixth through 12th grade.
- Bair Middle School in Sunrise. Current students will be consolidated into Westpine Middle School also in Sunrise.
- Seagull Alternative High School in Fort Lauderdale. Current students will be consolidated into Whiddon-Rogers Education Center.
School boundary shifts and changes will affect the following schools:
- A portion of students at Walter C. Young Middle School in Pembroke Pines will move to Silver Trail Middle School.
- A portion of students at Charles W. Flanagan High School in Pembroke Pines will move to West Broward High School.
- A portion of students at Hallandale High School will be assigned to Miramar High School. Hallandale High School will be transitioned to a four-day-week magnet school following the Pompano Beach High School model.
- Thurgood Marshall Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale will reconfigured to include pre-school age children to 5th grade.
Some parents in communities have rejected the board's intentions to close schools, suggesting instead that programs be added to draw new families to schools. Superintendent Howard Hepburn, however, said that approach is not sustainable long-term because of the "finite group of kids" in the district.
"If we put a program in and that program could be awesome [and] it draws kids from other schools, but [then] we're dealing with a situation at the other school," Hepburn said. "The county itself is not growing in population of students and so we're kind of cannibalizing other schools when we don't address what we need to in the school with the lower population."
The campuses that will be emptied out are planned to be "transitioned" into other uses, though specifics about those future plans were not in the memo.
The first school Broward closed was Broward Estates Elementary in Lauderhill. The building was 'repurposed,' as school board members describe the transition, into an early learning center.
