Community meetings planned over Pines, Miramar school closures. What to know
Families of Broward schools that will be shut down for the 2026-2027 academic year following low enrollment cuts will soon have answers, according to school board officials.
Broward County Public Schools will host community meetings at institutions “significantly impacted by Redefining ... either schools that are being closed or are going through major programmatic changes,” District 2 school board member Rebecca Thompson said in a Jan. 28 Instagram post.
The school board unanimously approved the shutdown of six Broward schools during a Jan. 21 vote as part of its “Redefining Our Schools” initiative to offset the costs of the district’s underenrollment woes.
Three schools in Thompson’s southwest Broward district are slated to close their doors: Palm Cove Elementary and Panther Run Elementary in Pembroke Pines, and Sunshine Elementary in Miramar.
“It’s more to have a personalized handoff at the school for families impacted,” the school board member told the Pembroke Pines News on Jan. 29. “(The district) knows that families are feeling a little frazzled by this, so I wanted the community meetings to come out as quickly as possible.”
Here are the community meetings for District 2. Each will be held in their respective cafeterias.
- Palm Cove Elementary: 11601 Washington St.; Thursday, Jan. 29, at 6 p.m
- Panther Run Elementary: 801 NW 172nd Ave.; Monday, Feb. 2, at 6 p.m.
- Sunshine Elementary: 7737 La Salle Blvd.; Wednesday, Feb. 4, at 6:30 p.m.
Community meetings are only open to parents and students of the affected schools and will feature representatives from various BCPS departments to address the unique changes each school will face.
Palm Cove, set for consolidation into Lakeside Elementary and Pines Lakes Elementary, will have BCPS staff from School Choice and Exceptional Student Education.
Panther Run, slated to be absorbed by Chapel Trail Elementary and Silver Palm Elementary, will also see visitors from the School Choice and Exceptional Student Education departments.
Thompson says she anticipates the Pembroke Pines schools’ families will have questions about zoning boundaries and hopes to clarify why new lines were drawn and any traffic-related concerns that might pop up.
Sunshine Elementary, whose students will be funneled to Fairway Elementary, will have School Choice, Exceptional Student Education and Transportation officials drop in.
Talks about conducting a safety walk or adding more school crossing guards will likely be had, according to Thompson, as both schools are on opposite sides of heavily trafficked Miramar Parkway.
Families of all three schools will be able to meet representatives from their newly assigned elementaries to “get a glimpse into what their kids are going to experience at a new school,” she added.
The campuses of all three institutions will become available for another district use, the school board confirmed during its Jan. 21 meeting. Their closures are expected to result in roughly $1 million in annual savings for the district.
Thompson says she’ll attend all of her schools’ community meetings except for Sunshine Elementary’s as she’ll be presenting an update on District 2’s “Redefining Our Schools” changes to the Pembroke Pines City Commission during its. Feb. 4 meeting.
Teachers and staff of closing schools, the school board member noted, will have to wait for clarity.
“There will be meetings scheduled specifically for the staff at the school,” Thompson said in her Instagram post. “I am working on getting dates for that.”
School board talks with the principals of closing institutions have already begun, she added.
For parents vying for more say in where they enroll their kids, a second school choice window is set to open in early March, though Thompson is hoping to push that date up for “our families that just want this chapter to be finalized.”
If remaining in District 2, the school board members says she’s “pretty confident that you’re going to get your (school) choice.”
