BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. – As Broward County Public Schools braces for state budget decisions and grapples with declining enrollment, district leaders say they are working to preserve the arts — even while making difficult choices.
At Maplewood Elementary in Coral Springs, the daily music program is being discontinued. In its place, students will have access to an after-school chorus club.
“We totally understand the thoughts of the parents,” said Angela Fulton, Deputy Superintendent of Teaching and Learning. “The arts are very important to our students, important to us, so we will continue to make sure our students don’t miss out on anything, finding other creative ways to make sure the course program continues for the students at Maplewood.”
The full-time music teacher said she will not transfer to another school, but remains employed within the district.
“As you know it is not a secret enrollment is actually less than in previous years,” Fulton said. “So as we make tough decisions we want to make sure that it doesn’t have tremendous cuts to our students.”
To fill the gap at Maplewood, the school is turning to a staff member already on campus.
“While they are losing their daily music program, they actually have an amazing chorus program that has been beloved in the community,” Fulton said. “So to extend that we have a staff member on campus that has been a 30-year music teacher that is going to extend his talents to be able to continue the music program ... A P.E. coach who was a music teacher for 30 years.”
At Cooper City High School, Jason Cochrac, a longtime band director also known as “Mr. C” is shifting to a part-time role due to a decrease in student interest in music electives for the upcoming school year.
Related link: Cooper City High School’s longtime band director honored by community, Local 10 News
“As students create their interests when they selected their courses, so there wasn’t an interest in our students in our 2025-2026 school year to continue that full-time,” Fulton said. “We did have an interest in part-time, but if interest increases that will definitely be looked at as well. My band program from my understanding only equated to a half-time program.”
Even with the adjustment, the program can still participate in football games, competitions and other performances.
Rebecca Thompson, a board member at BCPS emphasized that no official board action has been taken to eliminate music or art programs.
“If a course is cut it is typically due to students choosing other electives,” she said. “The amazing thing about our public schools is that we have so many options for students that sometimes they may choose to do robotics instead of a band class.”
“We are definitely working to protect arts and music,” Fulton added. “We really want to make sure that we protect that experience for our students because it really develops our students to be well-rounded. So we value the arts and we want to make sure we continue the tradition of everything we have been providing over the years.”
“I want to be very clear,” Thompson said. “There is no board action that has been taken that is cutting our arts and our music program.”
She pointed to Coral Cove Elementary in Miramar, which is being converted into a K-8 center this fall, as an example of investment in the arts.
“They are focused on ... so they have a musical program, art programs and band and everything like that and put on performances, so parents have choices,” Thompson said.
But the district’s final programming decisions are still awaiting clarity from Tallahassee, as the Florida Legislature continues to hash out the state budget.
“We get our funding obviously per student based on allocation,” Thompson said. “So if we are losing enrollment at certain schools, then principals have to make some hard decisions on what courses can be offered. But I do want to say again there is no board action cutting these amazing programs. In fact, there are schools that are expanding it.”
“Our funding is obviously the majority from the state, but right now, the state is still going over its budget. It is typically done by now, they keep pushing it off, they have different opinions between the state Senate and the House,” Thompson added. “So really, we are getting new information every day about what we can actually spend in our school, which as you can imagine makes significant impacts to the programming, how many teachers we can have, what kind of renovations we can have — so we are really just waiting on a final response from that.”
“We need it by the end of this month because that is when the fiscal year ends and that is when we have to establish our budget,” she said. “They promised it will be soon.”
