The painful process of trying to close some Broward Schools is scheduled to continue on Tuesday, with the School Board considering many new options.
Superintendent Howard Hepburn proposed closing 10 low-enrolled or deteriorating schools during a School Board workshop on Aug. 25 as a way to deal with an enrollment decline of 48,000 students in the past decade.
Those 10 schools still being considered for closure: Banyan Elementary in Sunrise, Coral Springs Elementary, Silver Lakes Elementary in Miramar, Dolphin Bay Elementary, Hollywood Park Elementary, Lloyd Estates Elementary in Oakland Park, Oakridge Elementary in Hollywood, Forest Glen Middle in Coral Springs, Walter C. Young Middle in Pembroke Pines; and William Dandy Middle in Fort Lauderdale.
But in a workshop scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday, the School Board will consider new ideas that came from a series of seven town halls held in September. These proposals could keep open some schools on the initial list and close some others not on the list.
After the School Board provides feedback at Tuesday’s meeting, the recommendations will be sent to a boundary committee for review. Hepburn plans to make his final recommendations in November, with School Board approval scheduled for Dec. 15.
Parents, students and community members who attended the town halls pleaded with the district to keep their schools open.
“These are not just numbers. These are children, families, relationships and support systems that cannot simply be moved like furniture,” a parent and employee at Dolphin Bay said at a Sept. 9 town hall in Miramar.
“Please don’t shut our school down, because if I have to beg you guys, I will. Believe me, I am a good beggar,” a fifth-grade student at Lloyd Estates said at a Sept. 16 hearing at the school.
“If Forest Glen closes, students like me won’t just be changing buildings; we will lose teachers we trust, programs we choose, friends we have made, and the middle school experience we were expecting to have,” a sixth grader said at a Sept. 14 town hall in Coral Springs.
Valerie Wanza, chief strategy and innovation, told community members at the town halls she would bring to the board specific alternative proposals. But she stressed that tough choices must be made, because school enrollment is expected to continue to decline due to lower birth rates in Broward and numerous families relocating because they can’t afford to live here.
“People will say, ‘Why can’t you just put a program in? We could, but the kids are gone,” she said at the Sept. 9 meeting in Miramar. “We will consider different options. But what’s not up for debate is the fact that we cannot continue to operate the number of schools that we do now.”
Wanza told the Sun Sentinel that the process can be heartbreaking.
“It is very traumatizing for our entire community,” she said. “As a 35-year veteran, I would have never seen this coming 20 or 25 years ago. I remember vividly when the majority, if not all, of these schools were at capacity, or they exceeded their capacity.
“But our current reality has just placed us in a totally different light, and therefore that our operations have to be guided by our current reality,” Wanza said.
Here are the options the School Board plans to consider on Tuesday.
Banyan Elementary
The Aug. 25 proposal called for closing Banyan Elementary and moving students to nearby Discovery Elementary and Village Elementary in Sunrise. An option requested by community members would keep Banyan open while adding an early learning center.
Coral Springs Elementary
Coral Springs Elementary, which is about a third full, was proposed in August to be closed, with students moving to both Eagle Ridge Elementary and Parkside Elementary.
A new option, based on community feedback, would instead move all students to Parkside.
Miramar schools
Dolphin Bay Elementary and Silver Lakes Elementary would both close under the Aug. 25 proposal, with students moving to Glades Middle, which would be expanded into a K-8. Sunset Lakes Elementary in Miramar would also expand into a K-8 school under this proposal.
Now there are three alternative proposals.
— Close Glades Middle, combine Dolphin Bay and Silver Lakes into one school and convert Sunset Lakes Elementary into a K-8.
— Close Dolphin Bay and Silver Lakes and move students into Sunset Lakes in Miramar, while keeping Glades Middle as a 6-8 school.
— Combine Dolphin Bay and Silver Lakes into a new Glades K-8 but keep Sunset Lakes as a K-5 school.
Forest Glen Middle
The original proposal closes Forest Glen Middle in Coral Springs. Sixth graders would move to Coral Park Elementary, Forest Hills Elementary, James S. Hunt Elementary and Park Springs Elementary, all of which would become K-6 schools. Seventh and eighth graders would move to Coral Springs High, which would become a 7-12 school.
An alternate proposal would still close Forest Glen but move students to Coral Springs Middle, Ramblewood Middle in Coral Springs and Lyons Creek Middle in Coconut Creek.
A community proposal would implement a performing arts program at the school to attract enrollment.
New proposals could keep open some Broward schools originally considered for closure while targeting others not on the initial list. One such proposal affects Sheridan Park Elementary, where parents have launched a petition to save their school. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Hollywood Park Elementary
The August plan would close Hollywood Park and move students into Boulevard Heights Elementary and West Hollywood Elementary.
The new proposal adds alternatives that keep Hollywood Park open by instead closing Sheridan Park Elementary and moving those students into Boulevard Heights Elementary, Hollywood Park Elementary, and possibly Driftwood Elementary. This option is opposed by Sheridan Park parents, who have generated a petition to save their school.
Lloyd Estates Elementary
The original proposal would close Lloyd Estates in Oakland Park and move students to Cypress Elementary in Pompano Beach and Oakland Park Elementary.
The latest proposal offers several alternatives. One would close the school and move all students to Oakland Park Elementary. A second would close the school and split students between North Andrews Gardens Elementary and Oakland Park Elementary.
Another option would keep Lloyd Estates open, and the district would pursue an external for co-location.
Oakridge Elementary
Under an initial plan to close Oakridge Elementary in Hollywood, students would move to Dania Elementary in Dania Beach and Colbert Elementary in Hollywood. A new alternative would be to move students to Colbert Elementary only.
Walter C. Young Middle
One option would move students to Pines 6-12 and Silver Trail Middle. Another would move them to Charles Flanagan High, which would become a 6-12 school.
Pembroke Pines owns Walter C. Young Middle and the property reverts back to the city in 2037, so the district has decided to close it. The August proposal offers two options: move students to Charles Flanagan High, which would become a 6-12 school or move some students to Pines 6-12 and others to Silver Trail Middle.
Both options are still being presented, although Wanza told the Sun Sentinel that the community “is very much in favor of moving as one unit to Flanagan.”
William Dandy Middle
Under the initial proposal, William Dandy would close and students would move to Parkway Middle.
The latest presentation includes an option to keep William Dandy open by moving middle school students from Dillard 6-12 to the school and converting Dillard into a traditional high school.