Miami-Dade School Board to vote on closing or repurposing 9 schools

It’s not easy to close a school, especially schools that have been community pillars for generations.

Broward County Public Schools has been going through that process for more than a year, and now Miami-Dade County Public Schools is doing the same thing for the same reason: declining enrollment. 

The school board will vote next month on a proposal to close and/or repurpose nine schools:

• Parkway Elementary 
• Rainbow Park Elementary
• Lenora B. Smith Elementary
• Miami Springs Middle
• Phillis Wheatley Elementary
• Pine Villa Elementary
• Richmond Heights Middle
• Mandarin Lakes K-8
• Robert Moton Elementary

Tiffany and Orlando Lawrence have a daughter in second grade at Parkway, and they’re worried about what next year might hold for her. 

“Maybe they gonna be happy or maybe they gonna come home and say, ‘Daddy, somebody’s picking on me because I’m a new kid there, whatever,'” Orlando Lawrence said. “Yeah, the anxiety and the stress that’s gonna come with that.”

“I’ve surveyed a good percentage of parents, and they’re saying they really don’t know what they’re gonna do, some of ‘em are saying that their kids will leave the district, they’ll homeschool, they’ll put ‘em in charter,” said Tiffany Lawrence, who is the school’s PTA president. 

Parkway and Rainbow Park are in school board member Dr. Steve Gallon’s district. 

“In the past five years, it’s been a hundred student-plus decline in each of those schools,” Gallon said. 

Echoing what we’ve heard from Broward school board members, declining enrollment means less state funding for that school, which equals fewer opportunities for kids, so consolidation of schools makes sense. 

“We have to make sure that we have educational programs that are viable, that we’re able to provide all of the courses, all the electives, all of the experiences that children deserve in elementary school,” Gallon said. 

Another example: Miami Springs Middle students would be sent to Miami Springs Senior High School, creating a 6-12 academy in board member Danny Espino’s district. 

“In this format, students can actually take up to eight high school credits for those kids that are accelerated, supercharging their academic career before they’ve even gotten to ninth grade and that changes their trajectory completely,” Espino said, touting the options those students will now have. 

Why are the closures necessary? The district points to affordability driving families out of South Florida, more school choice options, fewer babies being born, and federal immigration policy. 

Gallon told us the district had been enrolling between 10,000 and 15,000 immigrant students each of the last four or five years, and then this year, he says, that number dropped precipitously to about 3,000 kids. That’s a massive decline, and a big chunk of the district’s overall enrollment drop this year of about 13,000 students.

“Immigration has had a significant impact, and that has obviously taken a toll,” Gallon said.