Education Fast Facts

Broward County School System Fast Facts

For Broward County Public Schools interesting factoids, please see below or click here to visit the District's website.

How many students attend Broward schools in 2009/10?
There are 255,738 students enrolled in Broward schools-105,596 in elementary; 53,521 in middle; 70,137 in high; 4,592 in special centers; and 18,698 in Charter Schools.

How many children attend after-school programs?
Approximately 23,000 Pre K-8th grade students participated in before and after school programs during the 2007/08 school year. Programs offer academics, access to technology, indoor and outdoor play, drama, snacks and much more. Children must be registered for the program; a registration fee is required each time the student registers or has to re-register for the program. Families who qualify for free and reduced lunch may apply for a limited amount of reduced fee scholarships.

How many countries and how many languages are represented in Broward schools?
There are 166 countries and 50 language groups represented.

Number of foreign languages taught?
There are nine foreign languages taught: American Sign Language, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Spanish and Spanish for Spanish speakers, and Spanish as a second language.

What is the number of English Language Learners (ELL) students?
This year there are 24,631 students identified as English Language Learners.

How many Exceptional Student Education (ESE) children are there?
This school year, there are more than 40,000 ESE students-over 30,000 students with disabilities and 10,000 students in gifted programs.

How much is spent per student on average?

How many elementary, middle and high schools? How many special and adult centers and charter schools?
For the 2008/09 school year, there are 284 Broward Public Schools: 138 elementary schools; 42 middle schools; and 33 high schools. There are 16 adult/vocational centers and 55 charter schools. 

What is the number of actual classrooms/square footage of school buildings?
The total number of classrooms in the District is 14,254. The total space used by the Broward County School Board, including schools, centers and administrative space is more than 35.6 million square feet.

How many days in a school calendar?
Students are required to attend school for 180 per school year. While most of our schools are on a calendar that runs approximately from the beginning of August until the following May, we have six schools on a modified (year-round) calendar.

Students at Hallandale, Colbert, Watkins and Lake Forest elementary schools and McNicol and Gulfstream middle schools attend 180 days as is required, but they are spread out across the entire year with smaller breaks/vacations than the "traditional" school calendar.

How many magnet programs are there?
There are 63 magnet programs in 49 schools (18 elementary schools, 16 middle schools and 15 high schools).

How many employees does the school district have?
There are approximately 39,000 permanent and part-time employees. Of those, more than 17,000 are full-time teachers.

What's the entry-level and average salary for teachers?
The starting salary for a newly hired Broward public school teacher ranges from $38,500 to $70,000, depending on their experience.

In addition, new teachers can earn the following:

• National Board Certified Teachers are entitled to monetary incentives from the state of Florida and from the Broward County Public Schools.
• The state of Florida pays an Annual Certification Bonus, which is equal to 10% of the previous year's average teacher's salary in the state. This bonus is subject to annual legislative approval and is subject to pro-rating based on available funds.
• The state of Florida pays an Annual Certification Bonus, which is equal to 10% of the previous year's average teacher's salary in the state. This bonus is subject to annual legislative approval and is subject to pro-rating based on available funds. Broward County pays an annual salary supplement equal to 5% of the NBCT's annual salary or $2,438.00, whichever is higher, for the life of the certificate.
• Broward County pays NBCTs a supplement of $870.00 for 50 hours of mentoring services through The Broward Guild of Teachers.
• National Board Certified Teachers entering Broward County receive a one-time bonus of $1,000.00.
• National Board Certified Teachers teaching in a Title One school can earn $10,000 additional per year or 20% of their base salary (whichever is higher) if they mentor another teacher who is working to become National Board Certified or to become a BCRP (Broward County Recognition Program) teacher. BCRP is a local recognition program for instructional personnel who are not eligible for National Board.
• Opportunities for salary increases include coaching, club sponsor, teacher mentor, etc.

The average starting salary for Broward County teachers is $52,141. In-field advanced degrees are compensated as follows, based on the District's 2007/08 Instructional Salary Schedule:

• Masters Degree: $3,650
• Specialist Degree: $6,800
• Doctorate Degree: $8,000

What's the average experience of a Broward school teacher?
The average experience of a Broward teacher is 12.96 years.

What is the percentage of Broward teachers with advanced degrees?
The percentage of Broward County Public School Teachers who have earned an advanced degree (master's, Ph.D.) is 43%

Does every school have a school nurse?
The Broward County School Health Program is comprised of different entities that provide funding for basic school health nursing services for students. There are currently 98 schools staffed with an assigned on-site school nurse. These positions represent all funded positions. In addition, there are five volunteer nurses from the Broward County Health Department (BCHD) who provides scheduled hours of services to their assigned school. Thanks to the Children's Services Council for their funding to support the School health program. Other health services are provided by the North Broward Hospital District (NBHD) and Memorial Healthcare Systems (SBHD).

While these working arrangements benefit many students, there still aren't enough nurses for every school to have regularly scheduled nurse. However, each school without a regularly scheduled nurse has access to nursing services.

How many Partnerships does the District have?
As of July 2007, schools completing the Year-end Summary reported 2,561 partnerships that provided 9,833 volunteers who donated 104,608 hours of volunteer time. The total of cash and in-kind contributions, including the value of volunteer time, amounted to $5.59 million.

How many volunteers does the District have and how many hours did they contribute?
During the 2006/07 school year, approximately 30,000 volunteers logged more than 1.1 million hours. That represents more than $20 million in additional resources provided to the District by the local community.

How many grants and what was the amount awarded to Broward County Public Schools?
In 2006/07 there were 169 funded grant projects, totaling more than $183 million. This is an increase more than$14.9 million over the previous year.

How many school buses are used by the District?
The District has 1,530 buses on daily routes, transporting more than 80,000 students to and from school every day.

How many school bus miles are driven every day? Every year?
During the school day, our school buses drive more than 74,000 miles. Every year, the total miles driven, including summer school and extracurricular trips, is about 15 million miles!

What features are new on District buses?
Since 2001, new buses purchased have been equipped with lap belts. Also, since 2002, new buses purchased are equipped with air conditioning. The District newest buses also have GPS navigation systems.

How many meals did we serve last year? Approximately:

• 9.0 million breakfasts
• 26+ million lunches
• 1.05 million snacks

Total: More than 36 million meals

Tasty tidbits-What are most popular meals?
Broward's students' favorite meals include chicken nuggets, pizza, chicken patty on a bun and tacos.

Here's approximately what was served last school year:

• Chicken nuggets: 2.1 million servings
• Fruit juice (4 oz): 11 million
• Pizza: 3.2 million slices
• Hot dogs: 380,000 servings
• Chicken: 1.5 million pounds (683 tons)
• Apples: 1.56 million
• Beef: 920,000 pounds or 460 tons
• Oranges: 1.5 million
• Pears: 820,000
• Milk: More than 26 million cartons of milk last year

Because we use very little butter, most of our meals are low fat!