Don\u2019t shoot the messenger, kids, but the first day of school in Broward County is coming up fast.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aug. 10\u00a0is opening day for Broward County Public Schools, and the superintendent is excited about it. <\/p>\n
Education on Six reporter Ari Odzer had a long conversation with Superintendent Howard Hepburn on Friday, and here\u2019s part of their conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cComing into this school year, I want parents to know that excellence is the standard for Broward County Public Schools. Why? Because we\u2019re coming off of a third year being ranked an A-rated school district, no D or F schools for the third time in a row, 87% of our schools are ranked A and B, so proud of what our teachers and principals are doing,\u201d Hepburn said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The low enrollment, the falling enrollment has been a constant challenge over the past few years, so where do we see that going now in this upcoming school year?<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we are projected to decline another 9,000 students. We are monitoring this TPS situation, which over the summer has been a concern for us; we\u2019re monitoring that in the beginning of the school year, so as a result we\u2019ve had to right-size facilities, right-size staff to really align with our enrollment realities, inherently aligning with our budget realities, too,\u201d Hepburn replied. \u201cBut I am worried that students who are impacted by TPS may not come to school so I want to let those families know it\u2019s important for them to come to school, it is an opportunity for students to get a great quality education to change their trajectory, many of those families come to our country to have a better life not just for themselves, but especially for their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those families are worried that ICE is gonna show up at schools and take their kids away. What do you tell them?<\/p>\n
\u201cICE, we don\u2019t allow ICE or any law enforcement agency in our schools unless there is a court order; you just can\u2019t pop into our schools,\u201d said Hepburn.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Do you foresee more closures?<\/p>\n
\u201cI do foresee more closures. We have 50,000 open seats; in order to really be great stewards of taxpayer dollars, we can\u2019t have all these open seats; we need to consolidate,\u201d he replied, adding that the school board will discuss more school closures and repurposing on Aug. 25.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Hepburn says bring on the competition for students.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI implore parents to check us out; you will be surprised, we are offering things that you will never find in a charter school or private school,\u201d said Hepburn, citing courses such as aviation and aerospace, maritime industries, and more IB and AP classes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He also reminded us that the district needs to hire more school bus drivers. They lost 30 drivers because of the TPS situation for Haitians.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Also, drivers beware: Broward school buses will be equipped with cameras this year, and if someone drives around one of the stop signs that flip out from the side of the bus, a citation will arrive in the mail.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t shoot the messenger, kids, but the first day of school in Broward County is coming up fast.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[25530,249,251,250],"class_list":["post-359713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county-public-schools","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\/359713","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=359713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}