New ideas offered for Broward schools facing closure: Cities, nonprofits give their suggestions

Some Broward cities and community groups have outlined ideas for what could be done with school sites facing closure — with some suggestions including offering medical centers, child care centers and arts centers. But the school district’s vision still remains largely unknown.

The district posted materials Friday evening for a School Board workshop on closing and redefining schools scheduled for 10:15 a.m. Wednesday. These materials include letters from local cities and agencies on how they’d like to partner with the district.

But a 19-page district slide presentation mostly repeated information about process and criteria previously shared at town halls and School Board meetings.

“I was expecting more than just the information that was presented to us already,” Board member Nora Rupert said. “This is stuff we’ve seen before. I look forward to the conversation. I will have a lot of questions I will need answered.”

School Board members instructed Superintendent Peter Licata last year to close or repurpose at least five schools. Licata said last month he’s considering recommending closing far more. Final recommendations are due by June and any changes would take effect during the 2025-26 school year.

District officials have said this next workshop is expected to include some initial recommendations. A slide near the end of the presentation for Wednesday’s meeting says, “Superintendent’s recommendation,” but none was listed.

“The superintendent will make his recommendations based on board discussion,” district spokesman John Sullivan said.

The presentation says the district’s first step toward determining the future of schools will be to look at a school’s capacity and the condition of its facility, the latter of which is listed as “under development.”

After that, factors listed for consideration include equity, community input, the rate of students staying at the school, the number of out-of-boundary students, competition from charter schools, academic performance and operational and transportation costs and how underenrolled they are.

The district material also includes “partnership interest letters” from nine cities and 13 nonprofit agencies. Zoie Saunders, chief of innovation and strategy, sent out requests for ideas March 6 and gave the cities or agencies a week to respond.

Broward Community and Family Health Centers, a local nonprofit agency, expressed interest in leasing property to provide community health services, including general primary care, mental health and dental care to community residents, regardless of their ability to pay, CEO Rosalyn Frazier wrote.

Zero Empty Spaces, a local arts nonprofit group, proposed “activating closed school campuses to create artistic spaces serving our community” and “providing creative classes and workshops to the community including after-school programs for students,” according to a letter from Evan Snow and Andrew Martineau, the group’s co-founders and managing partners.

Several cities proposed workforce housing, targeted to teachers, police and firefighters. Coral Springs City Manager Frank Babinec suggested using available school space for “affordable childcare services” for city employees, first responders and teachers.

“We believe that such collaboration would not only address a critical need for our working families, but also foster stronger ties between our municipal government and the education sector,” Babinec wrote.

Several cities say they want to be involved and have the chance to purchase before the district disposes of any school property in their cities.

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“The City of Pompano Beach respectfully requests the BCPS consideration to offer a municipal right of first refusal for the City to be given the opportunity to review and possibly purchase future vacant BCPS properties, if any in Pompano Beach,” Mayor Rex Hardin wrote.

The city of Coconut Creek was most interested in keeping its schools open and successful, according to a letter from City Manager Karen Brooks. The city asked the district to prioritize improving the schools’ state-issued letter grades. The city has several previously A-rated schools that are now C-rated, including Monarch High, Lyons Creek Middle and Coconut Creek Elementary.

The letter also urges the district not to close Coconut Creek Elementary, the only school in the city included on a district list of underenrolled schools. The school is at 62% of its capacity, and the district considers any school with enrollment below 70% underenrolled, although the district has stressed no decisions have been made on which schools may close.

Brooks argued that census data, aside from one senior retirement village near the school, shows a lower median age than Broward as a whole. She also said the school is a feeder school for a magnet program at Coconut Creek High and that its closure would disproportionately affect minority and disadvantaged students.

Rupert, who represents Coconut Creek, said Coconut Creek Elementary is a great community school with “amazing teachers and leadership” and neighborhood kids who walk to the school.

“That should not be in the conversation,” Rupert said. “I will fight like heck to keep to keep it open. It doesn’t make any sense to close it.”