{"id":359879,"date":"2026-08-01T11:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T11:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/359879\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T11:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T11:50:10","slug":"broward-adds-arts-technology-programs-as-district-prepares-for-more-closures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/359879\/","title":{"rendered":"Broward adds arts, technology programs as district prepares for more closures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Published:\u00a0July 31, 2026 at 5:41 PM<\/p>\n<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Updated:\u00a0July 31, 2026 at 6:44 PM<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Broward County Public Schools is making a last-minute pitch to families as the district faces declining enrollment and the possibility of more school closures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/espanol\/2026\/07\/31\/broward-amplia-programas-de-arte-y-tecnologia-mientras-el-distrito-se-prepara-para-mas-cierres-de-escuelas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/espanol\/2026\/07\/31\/broward-amplia-programas-de-arte-y-tecnologia-mientras-el-distrito-se-prepara-para-mas-cierres-de-escuelas\/\">Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Superintendent Howard Hepburn did not shy away from the challenges facing the district, saying enrollment is down and more schools will have to close.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWe will have to close schools again this year. We have to align ourselves to our enrollment realities and inherently align ourselves to our budget realities,\u201d Hepburn said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The superintendent said the district has about 50,000 vacant seats, and projections show the decline is continuing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">At the same time, Broward schools are expanding their curriculum to attract and support students.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">All elementary schools will now offer at least three special courses, including art and physical education.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThese are challenging times for us financially, but we prioritize our students first and went through the budget line by line, and we did some trade-offs to make sure something like this could happen,\u201d Hepburn said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The district is also adding special space programs and expanding access to high-tech tools, including 3D printing and virtual reality. Technology currently available in a lab at Nova Middle School will be offered across the district.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Students using the virtual reality equipment can create 3D drawings while building skills like spatial reasoning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Hepburn said the goal remains to provide opportunities for all students.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body__copyright\">Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Janine Stanwood\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/author-service-images-sandbox-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/wplginc\/21e83aab-f6c0-4437-b3.jpeg\"  width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/>Janine Stanwood<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-author-bio__author-description\">Janine Stanwood is an Emmy award-winning reporter and anchor. She joined Local 10 News in February 2004 as an assignment editor. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published:\u00a0July 31, 2026 at 5:41 PM Updated:\u00a0July 31, 2026 at 6:44 PM BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Broward County&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-359879","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\/359879","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=359879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}