Miami-Dade and Broward Push Ahead With Plans to Close 15 Schools as Enrollment Keeps Falling

South Florida's two largest school districts are moving forward with plans to shut down more campuses. Broward County Superintendent Howard Hepburn has recommended closing 10 schools at the end of this school year, with a School Board vote set for Dec. 15. In Miami-Dade, the district has restarted a review that targets five schools for possible closure, with a board decision now expected in March. Together the proposals would affect 15 campuses, and both districts point to the same cause: thousands of students who are no longer enrolling in traditional public schools.

Broward's list: 10 schools, vote Dec. 15

Hepburn's recommendation, reported by WLRN on Nov. 5, calls for closing seven elementary schools and three middle schools for the 2027-28 school year. Students at each would be consolidated into nearby campuses, several of which would be reconfigured to take them in. The schools and their proposed receiving campuses are below.

The recommendation is not final. Only the nine-member School Board can close a school, by majority vote. If the board approves all 10, Broward will have closed 17 schools in three years in a district that runs more than 300 public schools, according to WLRN.

Board member Allen Zeman, who has pushed for even deeper cuts and at one point argued for 26 closures, said the 10 proposed closures would affect about 4,500 students, or roughly 2.5 percent of the district's 177,000. He has said enrollment is declining about 5.5 percent a year and that the district is losing students faster than it is closing buildings.

Why Broward says it must close campuses

The district has seen five straight years of falling enrollment, and it now counts more than 61,000 empty seats, nearly 80 percent of which opened up in the last decade, WLRN reported. Declining enrollment has cut about $430 million from a $3.5 billion budget, because Florida funds schools largely on a per-student basis.

Closures save money on utilities, maintenance and administration. The six schools Broward closed last year were projected to save about $1.2 million each per year, according to WLRN, though the district has not released a savings estimate for this round. Most closed buildings are expected to be repurposed, and the William Dandy Middle campus is expected to become a site for KIPP Miami, a charter operator in the state's Schools of Hope program.

District official Sonja Azim told WSVN that the board does not make these decisions lightly. The Broward Teachers Union opposes the approach, and its secretary told WLRN that each closure sends the community a message that public schools are not important.

Miami-Dade restarts its review

In Miami-Dade, the nation's third-largest school district, the Attendance Boundary Committee has posted a new list that names 34 schools. Six are "targeted": five for possible closure and one for expansion. The other 28 are "advised," meaning they will stay under close watch and face further review before any decision.

The five schools targeted for possible closure, and where their students would go, according to WLRN:

Southside Preparatory Academy, now a K-8 school, would expand to serve grades 9 through 12.

Superintendent Rafael Villalobos said each campus under consideration sits at roughly 40 percent of capacity. By the state's utilization measure, all five were more than half empty, and Southside Preparatory was at 49 percent, according to a report syndicated by Yahoo News. Districtwide, public school enrollment is down about 16,000 students from last year, which reduces state funding.

Villalobos has stressed that nothing is final, and told WSVN that a letter to families does not mean a decision has been made. He has argued that underenrolled schools can struggle to staff daily art, music and physical education because funding follows enrollment.

A process paused, then resumed

This is Miami-Dade's second attempt this year. The School Board voted in late June to close nine schools. An August list then named 12 more schools for potential closure, with another 15 advised. Villalobos, whom the board named superintendent on July 29, paused that process on his first day in September. The new list resumes it with what he described to WLRN as a more in-depth review.

The board's vote on this round, originally expected in December, is now expected in March. The district is holding community meetings through November, starting at 6 p.m., with dates and locations posted on its meetings page. Parents at the listed schools are receiving letters, and the list is a draft that can change before any vote. The board has said it intends to decide earlier in this round to give families more notice before the next school year.

Pushback from parents and the tax question

At workshops, opponents in both counties have asked the districts to slow down. WSVN reported that some speakers want a pause until the board lays out a clear long-term plan and strategic goals, and others urged officials to weigh the social and community impact on children and families, not just the budget.

Voters in both counties recently renewed local school property taxes that pay for teacher raises. One speaker quoted by WSVN argued the renewal may help offset costs and could give the board room to step back from the closure plan.

Closures also carry a risk unique to Florida. Under the state's expanded Schools of Hope law, charter operators can claim space in underused district buildings. Reporting on the Broward list has noted that several targeted campuses, including Banyan and Lloyd Estates elementaries and Forest Glen and Dandy middle schools, are the kind of underused buildings that operators could seek, which would leave the district maintaining facilities without receiving state funding for those students.

Why enrollment is falling

Florida's 2023 universal school choice law lets any family use state scholarship money for private school tuition or home education, and charter schools continue to grow in both counties. Each student who leaves takes per-student state funding with them, while the district keeps paying to run the building. Seven of Broward's 10 targeted schools and three of Miami-Dade's five are elementary schools.

What's next

Broward's School Board takes up Hepburn's recommendation on Dec. 15, and families at affected schools would be notified shortly after. Closures approved then would take effect for the 2027-28 school year. In Miami-Dade, community meetings continue through November, the list could still change, and a board vote is expected in March. Parents at any of the 15 schools can find meeting schedules on the Broward County Public Schools and Miami-Dade County Public Schools websites.