Columbus High wants to buy a public elementary school. The district says no

One of Miami’s most prominent private high schools made an offer to buy an active elementary school site from Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

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The district is poised to tell them no, according to a proposed agenda item for next week’s school board meeting and comments made by members at a committee meeting Wednesday.

Christopher Columbus High School made an unsolicited offer to buy Banyan Elementary, which sits across SW 87th Avenue from its main campus.

Banyan Elementary had about 350 students last school year. Its most recent state-calculated utilization percentage — a measure of number of students divided by capacity — was 56% last school year, but school staff at Wednesday’s committee meeting said it was 62%.

A county-owned park, Banyan Park, separates the elementary school campus from the busy SW 87th Avenue corridor.

The offer came at a time when Miami-Dade County Public Schools, and many other public school districts in Florida, have closed or consolidated schools and are contemplating even more closures. At the same time, private schools like Columbus High have seen enrollment increases, thanks in part to the implementation of a universal state-funded voucher to help with more than $8,000 in private school tuition.

Private schools and developers have expressed strong interest in some of the valuable South Florida land that might free up as a result of the public school system’s contraction.

Spokespeople for the school district have not shared the full proposal, including the total dollar amount offered, from the private, Catholic high school run by the Marist Brothers.

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The agenda item recommending rejection, which was moved forward by the board’s Fiscal Accountability & Government Relations Committee, mentions that Columbus High proposed to either buy or enter into a long-term lease on the property. They planned to build new facilities on the site, including an “aquatic center.”

“Under the unsolicited proposal, the petitioner proposed purchasing the School Board-owned Banyan Elementary School property at fair market value or structuring a long-term lease of the site,” the agenda item reads. “The proposal contemplated demolition of the existing District school facilities and the subsequent design and construction of new educational and athletic facilities, including an aquatic center, at the petitioner’s expense, for use by petitioner for educational and recreational purposes.”

The proposal also featured a commitment to allow the district access to the proposed aquatic center.

Miami-Dade School Board Chair Mari Tere Rojas represents the district where Banyan Elementary and Christopher Columbus High are located. She said she didn’t think the proposal was workable.

“I appreciate so much that this came out with this outcome. This is one of the schools that I represent — a wonderful school, a great community, tremendous parental involvement — and what was recommended was absolutely not feasible, in my humble opinion,” Rojas said.

Banyan Elementary was not on the recent list of schools being monitored for possible closure, which was released by the district in August but shortly thereafter put on pause by new Superintendent Rafael Villalobos.

A spokesperson for Christopher Columbus High did not respond to questions about the offer as of Wednesday afternoon.

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This story was originally published October 8, 2026 at 4:30 AM.