The Broward County School Board is considering closing 10 schools next school year as district enrollment keeps plummeting, leading district officials to seek downsizing the school system to save money.
Tuesday’s School Board workshop was primarily centered on Superintendent Howard Hepburn’s recommendation for the third phase of ‘Redefining Our School District,’ the initiative to close, repurpose, consolidate and reconfigure the district's most under enrolled schools. The School Board has closed seven schools over the past two years.
The potential closures are in Coral Springs, Hollywood, Miramar, Oakland Park, Fort Lauderdale and Pembroke Pines. A final decision may be made by year's end.
“ No one wants to close a school,” said Hepburn. “ These are the places where generations of kids learn to read, where families meet their lifelong friends, and where teachers pour their hearts into their work. They hold memories that can't be measured on a spreadsheet, and I don't take that lightly, not for a second.”
This school year in Broward opened with 11,358 fewer students compared to the 2025-26 year, costing the district about $100 million. Broward County Public Schools has 60,000 empty seats districtwide.
READ MORE: Miami-Dade County Schools shrunk by about 19,000 students at start of school year, data shows
Fewer students means less state funding, so operating under-enrolled campuses becomes a difficult financial decision for the district.
“ We can no longer afford to fund these empty seats as enrollment continues to decline. We have not backed away from the hard choices that we need to make,” Hepburn said. “ If we're unwilling to make bold decisions today and in the near future, the decisions ahead will only get harder or worse. Ultimately, they will stop being ours to make. Instead, the state will make them for us.”
Through past closures and layoffs of 1,000 staff members, the district has saved more than $100 million, according to Hepburn.
Under the proposal before the School Board, these are the changes in consideration for the 2026-27 school year:
- Bayan Elementary in Sunrise. Students would be reassigned to Discovery and Village elementary schools.
- Coral Spring Elementary in Coral Springs. Students would be reassigned to Eagle Ridge and Parkside elementary schools.
- Silver Lakes Elementary in Miramar. Students would be reassigned to Glades K-8 school.
- Dolphin Bay Elementary in Miramar. Students would be reassigned to Glades K-8 school.
- Hollywood Park Elementary in Hollywood. Students would be reassigned to Boulevard Heights and West Hollywood Elementary schools. Maybe others.
- Lloyd Estates Elementary in Oakland Park. Students would be reassigned to Cypress Elementary in Pompano Beach and Oakland Park Elementary.
- Oakridge Elementary in Hollywood. Students would be reassigned to Dania and Colbert elementary schools.
- For Forest Glen Middle in Coral Springs, one option is to close it and make the elementary schools in its feeder pattern K-6 schools and Coral Springs High would be expanded to serve 7-12. Another option would be to grow Forest Glen Middle into a K-8 and close one or two of the surrounding elementary schools.
- Walter C. Young Middle School in Pembroke Pines. Students would be reassigned to Pines 6-12 and Silver Trail middle schools as one option; another option would be Charles Flanagan High, which would be reconfigured as a 6-12 school.
- William E. Dandy Middle School in Fort Lauderdale. Students would be reassigned to Parkway middle in Lauderhill or, as a second option, to Dillard High 6-12.
- Sunset Lakes Elementary in Miramar would be reconfigured as a K-8 school, but it is not currently considered for closure.
There’s a chance the list grows by another handful of schools, as some board members advocated for adding more schools to the list. That would be discussed in September.
Exposed to Schools of Hope
Board discussion grew tense when considering Schools of Hope operators who may take advantage of a closed school. Florida law allows approved charter school operators to set up shop in the same campus as a district school that is underperforming and under enrolled — or any property the “vacant or surplus school district facility.”
That makes four of the schools on the proposed closure list vulnerable to being taken over by Schools of Hope operators — Banyan and Lloyd Estates elementary schools, and Forest Glen and William E. Dandy middle schools — meaning the district would need to keep paying for the building’s maintenance while not receiving state funding for any of the students there.
“ I have an inkling that a lot of people think that closure is going to result in some cost saving measure to us, or perhaps a net income generation,” said board member Adam Cervera. “So if this is a situation where we're just voting to close schools, and a charter school's just going to come over and take over, that needs to weigh on our — or at least it's going to weigh on my decision.”
Even if the School Board doesn’t close a school, said Valerie Wanza, chief strategy and operations officer, “the charter operator could say, ‘We want to occupy all of the available seats at the school in a co-location agreement.’"
Hepburn said William E. Dandy middle school is the only school on the list to be approached by a School of Hope operator, KIPP.
“The competition is stiff. The decline in students or school-aged kids in the Tri-County area is huge,” Hepburn said. “I don't know where they think they're going to get the kids from, because there's not enough kids in the area anymore.”
After schools close
When one campus closes, some, if not most, of those students are absorbed into other nearby schools which are also below their enrollment capacity. When the student groups are combined, the receiving school not only welcomes students, but also receives some of the closed school’s materials, like library books, instruments and laptops.
Jenna Williams, a Broward County parent, addressed the Board at Tuesday’s workshop. Her 5th grade son used to attend Sunshine Elementary School in Miramar before it closed. He now goes to Fairway Elementary.
“ Fairway is now at a higher capacity, which allows the school to have more teachers and more specials. My child's class is smaller, and this year they have media, [physical education], music and art,” Williams said.
District data shows enrollment at Fairway elementary grew by 217 students from last year to this year.
“ As a parent, this is what we want to see and hear happening throughout this process,” Williams said. “We want to know that the changes being made are resulting in positive experiences and opportunities for our children.”
Board member Allen Zeman advocated closing more schools, wanting to aim for 26.
Only 3.4% of schools have been slated for closures, he said, all the while enrollment has dropped by 40%.
“Are we going to continue to spend our money managing facilities that we don't need? The opportunity is to make the right decisions, to put resources in educator compensation, school-based programs, theme schools, added capacity where we know we're going to have added populations,” Zeman said.
The School Board is expected to establish a school boundary advisory committee next month as the next step to the Redefining process. However, the final vote is scheduled for December.
