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Nov 3, 2009 6:07 pm US/Eastern
Broward Schools Face Overcrowding, Underenrollment
Gio Benitez
FT. LAUDERDALE (CBS4) ―
Discovery Elementary is a brand new, $28 million school in Sunrise. Some 16 percent of the seats at Discovery are empty. Broward Teacher's Union President Pat Santeramo asks why it was even built.
"Why is it so important we continue these constructions when you know you don't have a need to fill those students at this point in time?" said Santeramo.
Santeramo is concerned because Discovery Elementary is not the only new school that has empty seats. In fact, according to state surveys, the School District now has more than 32,000 empty seats; as enrollment dropped, the District kept building new schools and adding classrooms to older ones.
"This district is out of control, in terms of construction, in terms of how it's operating, and it all comes down to this administration," said Santeramo.
"Is $300 million on additional construction too much money?" CBS4's Gio Benitez asked Superintendent Jim Notter.
"I don't believe it is, when you look at how that money was spent from 2005 and forward. We had a goal of getting our students out of portables."
But on Tuesday, some on the School Board disagreed with that goal.
"The fact of the matter is, we can use portables, no matter how old they are. I cannot see spending all this money and not using portables," said Robin Bartleman, school board member at-large.
The District told the School Board that some 15,000 seats are empty, not counting those empty portables.
"If we knew, you know, what I know, and drill it back to 2005, I certainly wouldn't be 15,000 permanent student stations over, I'd be a lot less," said Notter.
Notter says that the growing popularity of charter schools has caused enrollment in the county to drop dramatically.
So what happens now? Because some classrooms are emptier than others, hundreds of kids will now be transferred to other schools. In some cases, they will be transferred to completely different cities.
"My son can literally walk to Pioneer Middle, and now they want to bus him four to five miles away? That's just not right!" said David Nall, parent.
Las tweek, upset parents and teachers at Pioneer Middle in Cooper City lashed out at the idea of having hundreds of their kids transferred to a school in Hollywood.
"Now you're going to ship half of them to other cities, and you know, that's just not right. It just doesn't build a community," said Nall.
The discussion doesn't end here. Parents will meet to discuss this issue Wednesday night at MacArthur High School in Hollywood.
The Miami Herald contributed to this report.
(© MMIX CBS Television Stations. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald contributed material for this report)
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