Should Broward close some schools in 2025 or 2026? The latest considerations
Broward School Board members could decide Wednesday how quickly they want to start closing schools to deal with dwindling student enrollment.
Superintendent Howard Hepburn plans to bring to the School Board on Wednesday two proposals that would close eight schools: One that would take effect in the 2025-26 school year, and another that would take effect a year later. No school names are listed.
“We’re going to present to the board as much information as possible so they can make the best informed decision about what plan they want to execute,” Superintendent Howard Hepburn told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “This is strictly building the framework of how we’re going to execute getting to name schools, hopefully by the end of the fall.”
A major difference in the two proposals is the amount of community input the district would receive.
“One thing I’ve heard loud and clear from the public is they felt like they weren’t engaged throughout this whole process,” Hepburn said. “So we’re going to ensure that we heighten engagement, and we do it in the methodical way.”
The proposal to close schools in 2025 would get input in July and August 2024 from city leaders, faith-based organizations and civic associations. Then the district would meet with school-based employees in August and the public in September and October, with changes being finalized in November.
If the district waits until the fall of 2026 to close schools, the district would plan about eight months of community engagement from September 2024 to April 2025, with final decisions being made by late 2025.
Closing schools in 2025 would result in more savings but also more logistical challenges, the presentation said. If the district waited until 2026, it would also have more details from a school facilities condition assessment it’s conducting, although all schools still may not be evaluated, even with the year delay, the presentation said.
The information for Wednesday’s meeting provides for the first time the potential cost savings to closing schools. The district could save $1.8 million by closing one elementary school, $2.7 million by closing a middle school and $4.3 million by closing a high school.
The savings include utility, maintenance, transportation and food and nutrition costs if the district no longer operates the campuses. The report also said that schools with higher enrollment generally have a lower per-student cost.
“The figures provided are broad projections based on numerous assumptions and rough estimates across key areas of operational cost,” the presentation said.
Not included as savings include the cost of teachers, programs, security personnel, course materials, support for special-needs students and workforce education, because “those costs follow the students from that school to their next school,” the presentation said.
The presentation also said the number of empty seats is not as large as the district had previously reported.
A Florida Inventory of School Houses report from April determined that 6,285 seats in modular classroom buildings are no longer to be counted as permanent capacity, the district said. That brought the total number of empty seats down from 49,310 in September to 43,025 in April.
The large number of empty seats has caused the School Board to discuss closing schools for more than a year. Last summer, the board tasked former Superintendent Peter Licata with finishing a plan by June 2024 to close or repurpose at least five schools.
But the effort has been riddled with challenges, with Licata and the top administrators who led the effort resigning from the district this year for a variety of reasons.
A plan Hepburn presented the public during seven town halls in April and May was widely panned, and Hepburn decided to no longer recommend the most controversial proposals, including closing Oakridge Elementary in Hollywood, Olsen Middle in Dania Beach and Broward Estates Elementary in Lauderhill. It’s unknown if those three schools will be reconsidered for closure when the district develops a new plan.
The discussion is scheduled to start at 3:35 p.m. Wednesday, but the time could change due to a large number of items on the agenda.