‘Full-circle moment’: Panther Run community bids farewell to school with alumni event
Best friends Adeola Alebiosu and Ryan App were in the third grade when they met and bonded over their shared love of mermaids.
Though the high school seniors will be nearly 1,000 miles away from each other come fall — Alebiosu now lives in Illinois and App will move to Tallahassee for college — they have no doubt their nine-year friendship will continue.
The same goes for senior Carlos Hundley, who met his best friend of 15 years, Gabriel Cervera, in kindergarten.
What do these friend duos have in common, and what do they credit for their long-term success?
Both began in the hallways and classrooms of Pembroke Pines’ Panther Run Elementary, one of six Broward schools headed for permanent shutdown this summer as part of a Broward County Public Schools initiative to solve student underenrollment.
“It was sad, I’m not gonna lie,” Hundley told the Pembroke Pines News about learning of the closures.
Panther Run filled 290 seats this academic year, down over 100 since 2021, according to BCPS
The school is at 37% of its capacity, 778 students, leading to dwindling funds from the school district, which aims to cut millions of dollars in costs over the coming years.
“(At Panther Run) I was gifted with a friend group that now I’ve known for my entire childhood. ... It is what it is, but I loved every second of it, honestly,” Hundley said.
To celebrate the school’s final days, dozens of Panther Run students, teachers and staff gathered for its last alumni walkthrough, an annual tradition where high schoolers who attended PRE can tour the school before graduating while current students cheer them on.
This year’s edition — which drew out nearly 60 seniors on Monday, June 1 — saw more than just gradeschoolers lining the halls of PRE with pom-poms, noisemakers and handmade banners with encouraging messages and best wishes.
Tear-filled eyes, hugs and goodbyes were also on full display as the school prepared to shutter its doors on June 3.
“It’s a full-circle moment that honors the generations of students, families and staff who have made PRE such a special place,” Moraima Del Sol, the elementary school’s principal, told the Pembroke Pines News.
“Though this chapter is coming to an end, the spirit of PRE will live in the hearts of everyone who walked its halls.”
‘It all started here’
If you ask a Panther what makes PRE unique amid Broward’s 200-plus public elementary schools, you’d hear the same phrase repeated: “Pay it forward with kindness. What you do makes a difference.”
The motto was coined by former principal Elaine Saef, who joined Panther Run in 1998 — one year after the school opened with under 500 students — and served a 23-year term as its assistant principal and principal.
“I had seen the movie ‘Pay It Forward,’ where when something good happens to you, you pay it over three times over,” she told the Pembroke Pines News. “That became the culture of the school that I really promoted: kindness.”
In its nearly three-decade run, PRE was named the “Kindest School in Pembroke Pines” by city officials, won numerous awards for its volunteerism and partnered with Make-A-Wish South Florida to help critically ill children in Broward, according to the school district.
But beyond titles, its former students say the school motto lives on in their daily lives.
“I’ve been referencing it now all of a sudden more and more recently,” Alebiosu said. “(It’s) the basis of what I think about myself and how I view the environment around me as well. ... Be the most authentic self that I can be, and then pay it forward.”
“I used to get in trouble a lot. I was just out of control,” said Kigoma Peters, now a Charles W. Flanagan High School graduate, between laughs. “(PRE) helped me mature. ... It all started here. If it wasn’t for the people who supported me and everything, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
“I cried when I found out (PRE) was closing because I feel like this space has always paved the way for people to be the most authentic version of themselves, and it welcomes individuality and equality,” App said.
App plans to double major in theater and exercise physiology at Florida State University, and credits Panther Run music classes with her ability to play three instruments and sing.
“Learning those traits and values at such a young age is very pivotal to learning how to grow and be a nice person in society,” App said.
What’s next for PRE?
Panther Run’s legacy will take a new shape at several southwest Broward institutions that will welcome the school’s students and staff for the 2026-2027 academic year.
Del Sol will stay on with BCPS as a principal at Pembroke Lakes Elementary as will PRE assistant principal Shannon Chacona, who will assume a position on Silver Lakes Elementary’s administrative team.
What’s to become of teachers is less clear, although school board members shared in January that meetings tailored to staff members’ next steps were in the process of being scheduled.
Students will be reassigned to nearby Chapel Trail Elementary School or Silver Palms Elementary School depending on the boundary zone they live in.
And what’s next for PRE’s campus? The former school site will be used to house BCPS administrative offices, district spokesperson Keyla Concepción told the Pembroke Pines News on June 2.
But what made Panther Run memorable for thousands of families in the past 30 years will live on outside its walls, Del Sol said.
“Panther Run has always been more than a school. It has been a family, a home and a place where memories were made, and futures began,” she said. “Once a Panther, always a Panther.”
