After last effort failed, Broward School Board has a new plan, timeline to close schools
After failing to choose some schools to close this spring, the Broward School Board tried again Tuesday by asking the superintendent to pick at least five schools by November to close in the 2025-26 school year.
The board also asked the superintendent to come up with programs to add to some schools and to develop a communications plan to attract students back to schools.
Board members hope those efforts will fix the school district’s most pressing issue: a critical decline in enrollment. For the past two decades, Broward Public Schools have been losing thousands of students progressively to charter and private schools, leading to a hemorrhage in state funds too. Board members want to lessen the financial blow by downsizing, and by regaining families.
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“It is indeed unfortunate that we are at this point, but we have 43,000 empty seats,” said Jeff Holness, a board member, on Tuesday.
Earlier this year, former Superintendent Peter Licata tried to start the process of closing some schools and adding programs to others, calling the endeavor “redefining our schools.” But he left the school district abruptly in April, and shortly after, the “redefining” plans fell apart, facing intense criticism from the public. Now Superintendent Howard Hepburn will try again.
The School Board voted 7-2 on its motion Tuesday, with board members Torey Alston and Daniel Fognaholi opposing it. Alston raised concerns about the criteria the school district will use to select the schools to close; Foganholi didn’t explain his reasoning.
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How will the Broward school district choose schools to close for 2025?
In the district’s first attempt, Licata and his cabinet decided themselves which schools to impact and then presented the ideas to the community in different town halls.
Hepburn went a different route.
He wants to first create committees made up of students, parents, staff and other stakeholders in July and August. Then he will train those committee members and send them out to speak to communities in different areas in September and October.
Each committee will have a list of potential schools that could close or change in a specific area. That way, each community in each area will come up with a few ideas on how to solve their own issues and ultimately name at least one school to close there.
The school district will come up with the lists for the committees to consider by narrowing down their total 239 schools using the following criteria:
Enrollment at the school
Whether the school has any historical significance
Whether the school was built before 1960
The school type (elementary, middle, high)
The performance grades the state has given the school (the district will look at a five-year average)
Student demographics in the neighborhood (how many kids live there and what percentage is attending charter schools)
“If the schools in question are not considered historically significant, have concerns around aged facilities in poorer condition, and have lower percentages of assigned students attending, these conditions would make them more practical and appropriate candidates for closing,” Hepburn’s memo reads.
Issues with Hepburn’s plan?
Alston disliked the criteria because, he said, it will disproportionately affect Black and brown communities. To prevent that, he proposed ensuring that at least one school closes in each board-assigned district.
His idea would mean that seven out of the nine board members experience at least one school closing in the communities that elected them. The other two board members hold at-large seats, meaning they represent the entire county.
“We need to do this fairly,” he said. “We need to do this so there is an impact countywide.”
Zeman challenged Alston’s notion.
“It is a false choice to say we either pass this or we’re being racist,” he said. “I think we need to think about our decisions on a school-by-school basis with an equity lens.”
Sarah Leonardi, another board member, said she refused to mix politics and schools closing.
“I do not believe in using political boundaries in making these types of decisions,” she said.
The board approved Hepburn’s suggestion, along with the criteria. That means once the committees bring back feedback from the public, the school district will present to the School Board in November some options of programs to implement and schools to close.
Allen Zeman, a board member, said that although the motion asks for a minimum of five, he hopes the district presents way more than five schools to close. He wants that because of the severity of the under-enrollment and because it will be hard for the board to agree on a final list.
“Barring any emergencies in the fall we’ll be able to meet this timeline,” Hepburn said. “If there are any obstacles we’ll let the board know, but right now we’re pretty confident we’ll meet it.”
READ MORE: Check the map of Broward’s most under-enrolled schools
