Some South Florida parents and students are sharing their concerns over a proposal to close down an elementary school in Broward County.
A special meeting was held at Hollywood City Hall Thursday night in regards to Broward County Public School’s latest proposal to shut down Oakridge Elementary.
School board member Dr. Allen Zeman took time to speak to parents and students at the special meeting and to listen to their concerns.
“I love my teachers and I have learned a lot from them,” said one student.
“What’s gonna happen now when you guys close the school,” said one parent.
School district officials have proposed a plan to close down three schools: Broward Estates Elementary in Lauderhill, Olsen Middle School in Dania Beach, and Oakridge Elementary in Hollywood.
“We shouldn’t close Olsen for the sake of the kids in Dania Elementary, for the sake of the kids that come from Hollywood,” said a parent.
“I’ve been to Oakridge for 10 years and it is my second home and family,” said a student.
Some schools are under a plan to reconfigure, which has been catching heat at several special meetings. Often parents and students are adamant that they do not want to see their schools closed, changed, or moved.
The school district said they targeted schools with low enrollment, low grades, and/or aging buildings.
Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy sides with the community that closing schools is not the solution.
“They should be competing, not closing Hollywood and Dania Beach as well,” said Levy.
“If you close down the school, it’s not like it’s gonna do any better,” said a student.
Dr. Zeman said listening to the community open his eyes and knows there is more work to be done.
“It has really open our eyes to some things we are not tracking,” he said. “There’s some issues with demographic projections. There’s some issues with special needs children. There’s some issues with special programs and we gotta make sure the data that we have fully support the decisions that we need to make.”
School district officials said for the past few days at these special meetings the proposals are by no means a foregone conclusion.
A workshop with school district officials with the school board is planned for next week to work on a final proposal finalized this summer.
