December 14, 2022
The 1500 building, which opened in 2020, was intended to replace the now-unusable seats in the 1200 building. The 1200 building was deemed a crime scene following the shooting at MSD in 2018; school member Lori Alhadeff hopes to see the building knocked down in the summer of 2023. The 1500 building was not intended to alleviate the overcrowding that occurred even before the 1200 building became unaccessible. The 1500 building added 30 classrooms, and by extension, 750 students. This made up for the 1200 building that allowed for 713 students.
No. All 14 active, proposed plans include a phase-in. The phase-in method would allow all current MSD students to remain at the school for the rest of high school. The effects would only be felt by incoming students, as soon as next school year. This is particularly of note for students in the Exceptional Student Education at MSD; they will not be removed from their established routines.
My student has classes with over 25 students in them, how is MSD currently following class size guidelines if this is the case?
The 2002 Florida Class Size Reduction Amendment requires high school core classes to have a maximum of 25 students. MSD is adhering to those requirements, according to BCPS demographer Joseph Beck. However, the requirements apply only to core classes. Advanced placement classes and electives do not have such restrictions. For example, an Algebra II Honors class can have a maximum of 25 students, but an AP Statistics class has no class size limit. This means some classes can have 40 students, depending on demand and the number of periods offered.
Monarch High School is currently overcrowded by 236 students. Due to this, no BCPS student can apply for reassignment to MHS except for students whose legal guardians are employees of BCPS. Several community submissions, including C-3, C-7, C-11, C-13 and C-14, proposed rezoning some areas of East Parkland to Coral Springs High School, which is under capacity by 609 students.
This is not the case for Coral Glades High School, which is over capacity by 168 students. Because 804 of their 2,781 students live outside the boundary and are reassigned to the school, if current areas of MSD boundaries were rezoned to Coral Glades High School, BCPS would simply reduce the number of reassignments at CGHS to accommodate for the phased-in arrival of students that would have gone to MSD.
District-wide, Broward County Public Schools is under-enrolled by 45,222 students, excluding charter schools, according to BCPS Enrollment Day data for 2022. BCPS cannot build another school while there are empty “seats,” according to Florida state law. At the Nov. 3 meeting, BCPS officials stressed that it is also unnecessary. While MSD is overcrowded, the extra students are not enough to fill a new school.
*Names indicated were changed to protect the students’ anonymity
This story was originally published in the December 2022 Eagle Eye print edition.
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