Police are investigating after a body was found floating in a lake at a Fort Lauderdale high school Tuesday morning. The discovery was made on the same day students were returning to class from winter break.
The lake is on the campus of Dillard High School, 2501 NW 11th St., according to Fort Lauderdale police.
Dillard High’s “open campus mimics a small college,” according to the school’s website. It caters to middle and high school students in grades 6 through 12 and is the only public school in Broward County to have a magnet program for the performing arts and computer technology.
The lake is between the school’s parking lot and football field.
A school bus driver reportedly found the body at 7:42 a.m. — just as the first class of the day began.
The school remains open, said a police spokeswoman.
Police have not disclosed the dead person’s age or identity.
This bulletin will be updated once more information becomes available.
This story was originally published January 7, 2020 at 9:07 AM.
Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health’s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald’s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow. Support my work with a digital subscription
