{"id":1697,"date":"2025-10-14T07:21:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/1697\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T07:21:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:21:16","slug":"broward-school-board-member-says-school-closures-inevitable-no-hail-mary-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/1697\/","title":{"rendered":"Broward school board member says school closures inevitable: \u2018No Hail Mary coming\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. \u2014 Parents have sounded off as Broward County Public Schools considers closing or consolidating <a href=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/news\/florida\/2025\/10\/07\/parents-react-to-broward-county-public-schools-changes-in-miramar\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/news\/florida\/2025\/10\/07\/parents-react-to-broward-county-public-schools-changes-in-miramar\/\">six elementary and middle schools<\/a> next fall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/espanol\/2025\/10\/08\/miembro-de-junta-escolar-de-broward-dice-que-cierre-de-escuelas-es-inevitable-no-viene-ningun-milagro\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/espanol\/2025\/10\/08\/miembro-de-junta-escolar-de-broward-dice-que-cierre-de-escuelas-es-inevitable-no-viene-ningun-milagro\/\">Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">One school board member says closures are inevitable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWe will have to close schools. That\u2019s not a question. There\u2019s no Hail Mary coming,\u201d Broward County School Board member Rebecca Thompson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">More than a third of the potentially impacted schools fall within Thompson\u2019s district \u2014 and she says parents have a lot of questions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cPeople wanna know, is my school closed or not?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Thompson said the process takes time and emphasized that the district\u2019s decisions are based on declining enrollment and the costs of maintaining underused facilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s not just finding money to put into the schools,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cWe\u2019re funding empty classrooms. We\u2019re funding maintenance for buildings that no one\u2019s using.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">District data shows enrollment dropped by about 10,000 students this year alone, as more families take advantage of state-funded vouchers for private education. Over the past decade, Broward County Public Schools\u2019 enrollment has fallen by nearly 40,000 students.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The district says schools such as Panther Run, Glades, Palm Cove, Pines Lakes, Sunshine, and Fairway are among those being reviewed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">While closing schools like Glades Middle would be an emotional adjustment for families, Thompson said the district is exploring new uses for campuses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re gonna look into bringing a technical school into Glades,\u201d she said. \u201cThat actually benefits a whole new community of people and their students, once they finish high school, could go to these technical schools.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The impact could also extend beyond school campuses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cOur whole board said yesterday, if we\u2019re going to do this to our communities, we need to do it at a district level,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cSo we\u2019ve talked about selling the K.C. Wright Building, which is our downtown office.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Nothing has been finalized, and any decision to close or consolidate schools would require a board vote.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body__copyright\">Copyright 2025 by WPLG Local10.com &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. \u2014 Parents have sounded off as Broward County Public Schools considers closing or consolidating six&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-1697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}