Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Under-enrolled elementary and middle schools may close or merge
The Broward School District may close or combine some of its under-enrolled schools, as it continues to fight an exodus of students to charter schools.
Several schools situated next to each other may become one school. The district may use the best facilities from each of the schools, such as a library or science lab, while demolishing outdated buildings. Or it’s possible some campuses could close entirely.
The district may also create new academic programs for the combined schools or expand ones already available at one of them.
The schools affected are ones with far fewer students that they were built to handle, an issue most prevalent in older neighborhoods in the east.
The K-8 model has been a winning formula for charter schools, which have lured thousands of students away from traditional public schools in the past two decades. Charters have grown statewide, but their largest concentration of schools have been in South Florida, particularly south Broward and Miami-Dade County.
Many of Broward’s most popular charter schools, including Renaissance, Franklin Academy and Somerset Academy, are K-8 schools. District-run elementary schools have lost about 20,000 students in the past 15 years, while middle schools have lost 10,000. High school enrollment has been more stable, as fewer charter schools have wanted to invest in costly programs such as athletics and band, which are popular with high school students.
The School Board discussed some proposals Tuesday and plans to review them further Oct.
29. They said they want to see how much the ideas costs and what affect they have on other underenrolled schools.
Among the suggestions:
■ Broward Estates Elementary and Parkway Middle could become a program that infuses the arts into science, technology, engineering and math. Adding arts to the STEM fields would create a program known as STEAM. Both schools have a science and technology magnet program already, while Parkway Middle also has one that focuses on the arts.
■ Driftwood Elementary could combine with Driftwood Middle to become the Driftwood Academy of Environmental Health and Wellness, an expansion of a health program already offered at the middle school.
■ Mary M. Bethune Elementary in Hollywood could merge with the adjacent Attucks Middle. Bethune’s performing and visual arts academy would be expanded to a K-8 global communications and arts academy.
■ Several other proposals
have been suggested by Hollywood residents and the City Commission to provide a new middle school experience for students. The options include adding 300 sixth through eighth graders to Hollywood Central Elementary or adding up to 700 middle schoolers to Hollywood Hills High.
The Hollywood Central and Hollywood Hills proposals potentially could siphon more students from three nearby chronically under-enrolled middle schools: Attucks, Olsen and McNichol.
Sarah O’Connor has a kindergarten son at Hollywood Central and would like to keep him there for middle school. Another son attends Olsen, but she said he was the only student in her Hollywood Lakes neighborhood to go there. Most others attend charter schools, including the popular Hollywood Academy of Arts and Science.
“The fear is that the assigned middle school is just not up to par,” O’Connor said. “It’s also the opinion of all the neighborhood parents it’s unfortunate we have to leave our assigned school to go to a charter school because that’s the more viable option.”
Hollywood Commissioner Caryl Shuham, who was elected in November, told the School Board she was surprised by how many young parents didn’t want to send their children to district-run schools.
“As I knocked door-todoor, the one thing I heard most frequently from families with toddlers was ‘If I don’t get into a nearby K-8 school, be it charter or private, we have to move,’” Shuham said.
If the district adds middle grades to more elementary or high schools, it should start closing other middle schools, Board member Laurie Rich Levinson said. She said one option in Hollywood would be to send Olsen students to McNichol and Attucks and sell the Olsen building or use it for something else.
“We cannot keep taking kids out of a middle school and doing nothing else,” Levinson said.
For Hollywood Hills to add middle school grades, a military academy that serves 140 out-of-boundary students would have to relocate to another high school, officials said. And some students attending the school for middle grades may have to transfer to South Broward High in ninth grade to avoid crowding, Board members say they will consider that before agreeing to any changes. They also plan to seek community input for all proposals.
The district’s own efforts with combination schools have been mixed. The highly popular Beachside Montessori Village in Hollywood, which started as an elementary, gets more applications for middle school seats than it can serve. Annabel C. Perry in Miramar also has able to retain its elementary school students for middle school.
But at Coral Springs PreK-8 and North Lauderdale PK-8 enrollment drops off dramatically in the middle school years.
Two of Broward’s three 6-12 schools have proven popular with new students. Dillard High, also known as Dillard 6-12, added 416 middle school students. Millennium 6-12 has 203 students in grades 9 to 11, meeting its enrollment projections. Less successful has been Lauderhill 6-12, which only has 115 students grades 9 to 12.