COCONUT CREEK, Fla. — Broward County teachers are getting their classrooms ready as they prepare to welcome students back on Monday.
And starting that day, four elementary schools will become K-8 schools.
District officials said declining student enrollment has led to some restructuring and consolidation across the district; the district is under-enrolled by 50,000 students.
One of the schools that turned K-8 is Coconut Creek Elementary School. It’s now Coconut Creek K-8 Academy of Excellence.
“I love the K-8 model. I think it’s gonna be great,” Deborah Ridgley, a sixth-grade teacher at the newly-named school, said.
Ridgley is moving up with her fifth-grade students at the school, teaching sixth-grade math, plus new electives.
“I think it’s great. I get to see the growth that has happened in them,” she said. “Coding is going to be different for me, but I’ve already learned a lot.”
That’s one of the ways the school is trying to make it feel like a middle school for the returning students.
“We have partnered with our local high school to make sure there’s a continuum of advanced academics,” Jocelyn Reid, the school’s principal, said.
New electives and switching classes for subjects — from math to social studies to science — are all part of the plan. They’re all in a separate wing of the campus that’s gotten upgrades.
“The classrooms were completely remodeled — flooring, paint, furniture,” Reid said.
In the main building, third- through fifth-grade teachers are also preparing to lead “departmentalized classrooms” for the first time.
Instead of one teacher with the same class the whole day, they’ll have a co-teacher specializing in certain subjects they can swap out with.
“We want to make sure we fully embody the theme of growth and being excellent,” Reid said. “That way, we are retaining our own, we’re attracting new students and we’re making sure we increase our enrollment.”
These schools are starting with just sixth grade being added on. Seventh grade will come next year and eighth after that, requiring hiring and reconfiguring campuses every summer.
One big extracurricular that tends to come with middle school — sports — is still a work in progress.
Reid says she’s collaborating with the other new K-8 schools to see if they can start a program.
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