Broward school board members approve superintendent’s plan to shutter elementary school, consolidate other schools

The Broward County School Board has passed Superintendent Dr. Howard Hepburn’s proposal to close a Lauderhill elementary school and consolidate a few others.

The board’s approval comes after months of meetings, town halls and workshops to address under-enrollment and cost savings across county schools.

“All those in favor of MM1 say ‘aye,'” said Broward School Board Chair Debra Hixon.

“Aye,” said the majority of the board.

“All those opposed saying ‘no,'” said Hixon.

“No,” said two members.

“Two dissenting votes, so MM1 passes,” said Hixon.

According to the now-approved plan, Broward Estates Elementary in Lauderhill will close and be converted into an early learning center. The school’s student body will be consolidated into Martin Luther King Jr. Montessori and Plantation Elementary schools.

Dr. Hepburn said these changes address a need in the community.

“Just to make sure that our kids are coming to their neighboring elementary schools, kindergarten ready, really changing their trajectories and their family’s trajectories so they can be more successful in the future,” he said.

In addition, the plan calls for the consolidation of several other elementary schools into K-8 centers. These include Coconut Creek Elementary, Hollywood Central Elementary, and Coral Cove Elementary in Miramar.

It also converts Silver Shores Elementary into two other schools and makes the Silver Shores campus a full-choice school program where only those who apply can be admitted.

The plan also reconfigures Pines Middle School into a 6-12 grade school over some time.

“I’m very happy to announce that the board passed the superintendent’s recommendation, which is the first step in our redefining process,” said Hixon.

But critics of the plan said the school board made a rushed decision.

“I wish the motion was to, until next meeting, is to squash it until further notice when you have a direct conversation in some more workshops from your leaders and others that can bring a more understanding of what the real plan is,” said Broward County Teachers’ Union President Anna Fusco.

However, the school board said it has argued for many months that it has 45,000 fewer students than in years past and something had to be done.

School Board Member Dr. Allen Zeman added that more needs to be done, and closing just one school is not enough.

“I wanna compete, but we can’t keep doing what we are doing and have the money to be excellent. Excellence doesn’t come from marketing. Excellence comes from spending money where you know it matters,” he said.

Hepburn said that while he understands Zeman’s argument, multiple schools cannot be shuttered all at once.

“Dr. Zeman is not wrong in our declining enrollment. He’s absolutely, absolutely accurate in that. But we have to do something different. We just can’t start by just abruptly closing many schools. We have to be innovating, offer different types of solutions, offer different types of programming,” said Hepburn.

The approved changes will impact the 2025-26 school year.

The school board said this approval is only Phase One of a plan that has several phases.