Pembroke Pines deletes defunct 'Promise' reference from charter school handbooks

The Pembroke Pines City Commission on Dec. 11 approved 2025–26 school improvement plans, discipline guides and parent-student handbooks for the city’s charter schools and voted to remove references to the Promise program, which staff said was sunsetted in 2023.

Commissioner Schwartz moved to approve the charter documents and to delete references to the Promise program from materials already adopted by advisory boards. Assistant Superintendent and Assistant City Manager Jonathan Bonilla and principals told the commission the Promise program was an alternate-to-suspension program run by Broward County Schools that the city’s charter schools were not participating in and that the county wound the program down in 2023.

"It was like an alternate to suspension...it just didn't work out the way they intended it," Peter Barron, principal of Pembroke Pines Charter High School, said of the Promise program.

The commission adopted the amendment (deleting Promise references) and related school items unanimously. City Attorney Goren advised that, as the governing board of the Pembroke Pines Charter School system, the commission has authority to make these handbook changes.

What happens next: Staff will remove the language from future documents and ensure advisory-board-approved handbooks reflect the change.