Marjory Stoneman Douglas. {Photo by Sharon Aron Baron.}
By Jon Schaefer
The Broward County School Board is holding a crucial workshop on Tuesday, February 7, to review proposals and community input in determining new boundaries for Marjory Stoneman Douglas for the upcoming 2023/2024 school year.
At the heart of the matter is the pressing issue of over-enrollment at MSD, causing a strain on the budget, class sizes, and transportation.
The goal for the School Board is to have a consensus on which proposal if any, should move forward to the public hearings in March and April. If there is no consensus on a proposal, MSD will stay over-enrolled, which could affect school budgets, transportation, and reassignment awards.
As previously reported on Parkland Talk, the boundary process began last September with a School Board workshop where residents were asked to create their own proposals.
Sixteen were eventually submitted, but not all received a warm reception. Some proposals have been criticized for removing a disproportionate number of black students from lower-income areas. Their authors have since withdrawn community proposals C-6 and C-10.
While all the proposals met class size and level of service requirements, diversity, and natural barrier considerations, parents at the November 3 community meeting raised concerns over calculating diversity. Proposals were expected to ensure that the diverse demographic population of MSD would not change by +/-5%.
Jennifer Levy, a parent, highlighted this issue at the meeting.
“MSD has 439 black students. By removing TAZ 107, 653, and 112, the school is losing 98 black students – 22% of the entire black student population. This is not representative of Broward County’s diversity.”
The February 7 workshop will allow the School Board to consider all proposals.
The final changes will phase in changes starting with the incoming 2023/2024 9th grade class.
The School Board will vote on all attendance areas at the first reading on March 29, and the final adoption will take place at the second reading on April 12.
The meeting will take place at 600 SE Third Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, 33301, from 11:15 am to 1:15 pm.
The public is welcome to attend.
For more information on the school boundary process, visit browardschools.com/boundaryprocess.
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