‘Don’t want to scare’: Superintendent predicts 10+ school closures for 2027-28
Broward could see 10 or more public schools shutter come 2027 as part of an effort to offset declining student enrollment, according to district leadership.
At a May 12 school board workshop, Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Howard Hepburn was quick to answer when asked to project how many schools would need to be repurposed for the 2027-2028 academic year to create the most “efficient and effective school district possible.”
“You always got the hard questions. ... I don’t want to scare the public, but I would say definitely above 10,” he told school board member Allen Zeman, who posed the question.
The superintendent’s estimate would amount to more closures than the previous two academic years combined, which saw Lauderhill’s Broward Estates Elementary shut down in 2025 and six scheduled for closure in June.
Those closing next month: Plantation Middle School, Pembroke Pines’ Panther Run Elementary and Palm Cove Elementary, Miramar’s Sunshine Elementary, and Fort Lauderdale’s North Fork Elementary and Seagull Alternative High School.
School closures are part of the district’s third phase of the Redefining Our Schools initiative of closing, repurposing or consolidating campuses to mitigate a drop in state funding from an even steeper decline in student enrollment.
BCPS has lost nearly 40,000 students in the past decade, including about 10,000 this school year, with another 10,000 projected next year.
Which institutions could be put on the chopping block for the 2027-2028 school year is unknown.
District officials also suggested that BCPS will change how it seeks public feedback to require fewer district-wide community meetings and “streamline” the process.
“Instead of going to 13 different meetings, to really do it in a more regionalized approach where we would have a north region section session, a central region and then a south,” said Valerie Wanza, BCPS’ chief strategy and innovation officer.
“Throughout the summer, we will continue to collect data based on enrollment trends, facility conditions, look at our continuity across programming, our operations, and more importantly, we will continue to collect community input.”
A BCPS boundary advisory committee, which recommends attendance zones for students affected by closures, was also significantly trimmed from its original 60-person roster.
Updates on the upcoming Redefining phase also saw pushback to the annual shutdowns from school board members at the May 12 meeting.
“We can’t keep closing schools every year. I’d like to wrap this up this year so that people can heal and see our great work coming to fruition,” District 2 representative Rebecca Thompson said.
“At some point the system’s going to break and people aren’t going to trust us to put their kids in our schools because they don’t know if next year we’re going to close the school.”
According to Hepburn, the district is scouting a “master planner” consultant who will assess enrollment projections, development and other factors to help develop a long-term plan.
“We predict that there’s going to be some solid recommendations brought back to the board. ... We’re going to be very strategic about what we bring for this upcoming school year,” he told school board members.
The school board is slated to begin Redefining talks and recoomendations for the 2027-2028 academic year in July, according to an updated memo released with the board’s May 12 agenda.
That will be followed by a final vote in December and “transition planning” in January.
