Disruptive Broward school zoning changes hurt families | Editorial
The Broward County School Board will decide Wednesday whether to relocate at least 351 soon-to-be high school students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland to Coral Glades High in nearby Coral Springs.
This change is one of many alternatives proposed by school district demographers to ease overcrowding at Douglas, which is most serious in corridors, cafeteria and other common areas. But on the overcrowding question, as with most others, a clear consensus on the nine-member School Board is elusive. This boundary battle is an intrinsically Broward controversy. It is intertwined with issues of race, wealth and politics.
For families, and especially students, this upheaval is too abrupt and too disruptive and can be postponed for one year without causing any serious problems. During the interim, the district should work on crafting a long-term policy on managing boundary changes, because the tension in Broward’s northwest corner will likely repeat itself in Fort Lauderdale, Weston, Miramar and elsewhere.
The affected students live in traffic analysis zones, or mini-zip codes, bounded by Wiles Road on the north, Royal Palm Boulevard on the south, University Drive on the east and Coral Springs Drive on the west. Nearly 30% of the students are Black, and nearly half are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.
One obvious effect of this shift is to make Douglas whiter. The Parkland school’s Black student population would drop from 12.5% to 10.8%.
Years of boundary brawls
Yearly boundary brawls have been a repeated occurrence in Broward schools since the 1970s, when a fractured board took piecemeal steps on boundaries. In a period of a massive westward housing boom, it was impossible to preserve neighborhood schools and keep schools integrated at the same time.
A board member in the middle of those controversies was Kathleen C. Wright, whose name adorns school headquarters. The former civics teacher at Dillard High and the first elected African-American school board member in Florida, she died in a 1985 plane crash.
That board, like this one, struggled to find a consensus. It dithered and made short-term, reactive fixes rather than long-term policy decisions. The board must become strategic, not reactive, and this Coral Springs-Parkland controversy is the right time to do so.
‘Winners and losers’
The board’s new countywide member, Dr. Allen Zeman, said his colleagues were picking “winners and losers,” a reference, he said, to the fact that Douglas is A-rated and Coral Glades is C-rated — not to affluent white families prevailing over Black, Latino and low-income students.
Zeman wants the district to establish a zone of educational excellence in the county’s northwest quadrant, with much more community input.
Zeman apologized twice for his winner-loser analogy and he urged a one-year delay before finalizing any boundary changes. The district is “shocking families in the name of expediency,” Zeman said. His plea failed, as most board members favor approving the attendance shift in time for next fall.
Zeman’s pointed criticism of his colleagues brought pushback from others, with Nora Rupert telling Zeman: “Wow ... It’s just not what you’d want to do to a colleague.” Such tensions were common at boundary hearings in the 1980s.
Board member Daniel Foganholi of Coral Springs, who said his nieces and nephews are among those who would become “Jaguars” at Coral Glades, said: “We need to change that narrative. Your school is not going to determine how great you’re going to be. We need to make our kids make our schools great.”
That’s an admirable goal, and the perceived quality of a school, greatly amplified by Florida’s grade-letter system, has a powerful impact in defining the quality of life for a community.
Good schools are synonymous with a good standard of living, and it’s not lost on parents that Douglas is an A-rated school and Coral Glades is C-rated.
If anything positive is going to come out of this controversy, it’s a renewed recognition that Coral Glades would benefit from more attention and resources.
Another reason to defer a decision is that the county’s school choice enrollment window has closed for next year. Board members said they would reopen it for a brief period, but that’s a problem because the district does not communicate effectively enough with the public.
Wednesday’s boundary hearing begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Coral Springs High School auditorium. If a board majority agrees on a plan, a final vote will be taken at a second hearing on April 12 at Taravella High in Coral Springs.
(Editor’s Note: This editorial has been updated to clarify what School Board member Dr. Allen Zeman meant by “winners and losers.”)
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
