Broward County School Superintendent Dr. Howard Hepburn is recommending the closure of seven elementary schools and three middle schools in the 2027-28 school year.
The School Board and district officials have been discussing the proposal to close 10 schools for months, considering different configurations and which nearby schools could absorb the student populations from closed schools.
The board has closed seven schools in the last two years as part of the ‘Redefining Our Schools’ initiative, which tackles the underenrollment crisis by closing, repurposing and reconfiguring the schools with the most empty seats.
Districtwide, there are more than 61,000 empty seats. Almost 80% of those seats disappeared in the last decade.
With fewer students translating to less state funding, it means about $430 million less in the district’s $3.5 billion budget. The decline in dollars affects how much it can spend on student programs.
Since operating underenrolled schools is costly, closures are a popular — but contentious — way to find savings.
From the six closures last year, the average annual savings for each are $1.2 million, $10 million collectively.
Hepburn's recommended list of closures are:
- Banyan Elementary in Sunrise. Students should be consolidated into Discovery and Village elementary schools.
- Coral Springs Elementary. Students should be consolidated into Parkside Elementary.
- Silver Lakes Elementary and Dolphin Bay Elementary in Miramar. Students should be consolidated into Glades Middle School, which would be reconfigured as a K-8 school.
- Lloyd Estates Elementary in Oakland Park. Students should be consolidated into North Andrews Gardens and Oakland Park elementary schools.
- Oakridge Elementary in Hollywood. Students should be consolidated into Colbert Elementary.
- Sheridan Park Elementary in Hollywood. Students should be consolidated into Boulevard Heights, Driftwood and Hollywood Park elementary schools.
- Forest Glen Middle in Coral Springs. Students should be consolidated into Coral Springs Middle.
- Walter C. Young Middle in Pembroke Pines. Students should be consolidated into Charles W. Flanagan High, which would be reconfigured as a 6-12 school.
- William Dandy Middle in Fort Lauderdale. Students should be consolidated into Parkway Middle School.
Most campuses are expected to be repurposed, though the memo did not specify for what. The William Dandy Middle campus, however, is expected to become a site for KIPP Miami, a School of Hope charter school operator.
The recommendation is aligned with the recommendations made by the Attendance Boundary Committee, which is responsible for drawing up school boundaries for communities.
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The School Board, for the most part, was in consensus with what the committee recommended.
School board member Allen Zeman advocated for 26 school closures, arguing the school district is losing students at a much faster rate than the closing of schools.
“ This list of 10 schools is 2.5% of our student body. It represents 4,500 people out of a district with 177,000 students,” he said at Wednesday’s workshop. “I hope that the board thinks hard about that. If we continue to change at 2.5% per year while our enrollment is declining at 5.5% per year, we're never gonna catch up.”
Each school closure inflicts pain on the community of students, parents and educators belonging to it. More closures would mean more pain. The president and secretary of the Broward Teachers Union, during the workshop meeting, disapproved of the ambitious approach.
“ You need to get off the wagon that you wanna continue closing the schools, 'cause it's not good. It's not okay,” said union secretary Lialiana Ruedo. “By every school that you close, …you're telling the community that, guess what? Public schools are not important.”
The superintendent’s recommendation is not the final say.
Only the nine-member School Board has the power to close a school through a majority vote. The vote for this round of closures is scheduled for Dec. 15.
If the 10 school closures are approved, the school will have closed 17 schools in three years. The district operates more than 300 public schools.
