As of last Friday, the Broward County School District had 587 new Haitian students -- an increase of 85 since the Sun-Sentinel published its last article a few days earlier. That's far more students than Miami-Dade or Palm Beach County, but then the Broward schools have plenty of room, thanks to the corrupt over-building of classrooms that Bob Norman has described on Daily Pulp.
But it's not enough to put the Haitian refugees in classrooms. It's another to pay for their education and a host of other necessary services. Especially when they arrive at the same time as Broward County is learning that its home values, which are the basis for the taxes integral to school funding, plummeted in 2009.
This is the same district that struggled mightily to close a massive budget gap last year -- which was already going to be in a crisis state before the earthquake struck in Haiti, leading to the enrollment of several hundred needy students, now spread across 145 Broward schools and 18 charter schools.
