{"id":421173,"date":"2026-10-07T13:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T13:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/421173\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T13:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T13:22:09","slug":"broward-school-board-sticks-with-plan-to-close-10-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/421173\/","title":{"rendered":"Broward School Board sticks with plan to close 10 schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parents and community members packed the Broward school district headquarters Tuesday in hopes of saving their schools from closure, but School Board members gave little hope of that happening.<\/p>\n

The School Board reviewed Superintendent Howard Hepburn\u2019s proposals to close 10 low-enrolled schools<\/a> and move students to other schools with plenty of space.<\/p>\n

School Board members didn\u2019t make any final decisions during a four-hour workshop Tuesday, but their discussion suggested a desire to move forward with the current proposal, with possibly some tweaks.<\/p>\n

The school district has already closed seven schools<\/a> over the past two years due to years of declining enrollment that has left the district with dwindling revenues and about 70,000 empty seats.<\/p>\n

The proposal will now go to a district boundary committee on Oct. 26 for review. Superintendent Howard Hepburn plans to make his final recommendations in November, and the School Board would make final decisions Dec. 15, according to the current timeline. Closures would take effect at the start of the 2027-28 school year.<\/p>\n

Among the schools considered to be closed: Banyan Elementary in Sunrise, Coral Springs Elementary, Silver Lakes Elementary in Miramar, Dolphin Bay 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.<\/p>\n

These schools were all on a list Hepburn provided to the School Board for an Aug. 25 workshop.<\/p>\n

Another school on Hepburn\u2019s original list is Hollywood Park Elementary. That school is still under consideration, but at the request of board members, the district also provided an alternative: closing Sheridan Park Elementary in Hollywood.\u00a0 Only one of the two is expected to close, which some say has pitted the two school communities against each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy is it that Hollywood Park gets to complain and then they get an option put on here that puts us at a disadvantage?\u201d Crina Browne, a teacher at Sheridan Park, asked the School Board. \u201cI call on the School Board to please add another option and that option is to bring all of Hollywood Park to Sheridan Park. We can fit both schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Canter, a parent and chair of Hollywood\u2019s education advisory committee, spoke out against closing either school, saying he doesn\u2019t think the district had done proper research.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not ashamed to say I oppose the closure of every single school on this list. This is a failed process,\u201d he told the board. \u201cLook at what your staff did in West Hollywood. They threw out a bunch of names of schools and then basically said, \u2018You guys figure it out.’\u201d<\/p>\n

District administrators and School Board members shared Hepburn\u2019s proposals during a series of community meetings in September, and most of the feedback was negative<\/a>, with parents, students and elected officials making cases of why their schools should stay open. Many argued that the alternative school was too far away, less safe or academically inferior.<\/p>\n

Many parents from Miramar have opposed a proposal to convert Glades Middle into a K-8, saying they didn\u2019t want young children attending school on the same campus as middle school students.<\/p>\n

Board members said the list could still change, and the public will have at least two additional opportunities in November and December to give input on proposed changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just grateful to everyone who came out today, but also who came to all of the community conversations and shared their feedback,\u201d Board Chairwoman Sarah Leonardi told the South Florida Sun Sentinel after the meeting. \u201cPeople are passionate about their schools, and I think that\u2019s a good thing, and I understand that this is really hard for everyone involved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Parents and community members packed the Broward school district headquarters Tuesday in hopes of saving their schools from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[113,249,251,250,266,115,109,32797],"class_list":["post-421173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-education","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-social","tag-south-florida-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421173","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=421173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}