ORLANDO, Fla. — On Wednesday, Orange County School Board members went to the state capitol to urge lawmakers to increase funding for public schools. It comes as the school district is moving forward with a plan to close seven schools due to declining enrollment and decreased funding.

What You Need To Know

Orange County School Board members went to the state capitol to urge lawmakers to increase funding for public schools

OCPS Superintendent Maria Vasquez says in the next year they are expecting to lose another 5,000 students and even more funding

The school district is already moving forward with a plan to close seven schools due to declining enrollment, and decreased funding
Administrators say they facilitate services for many students not enrolled, but those students do not count towards funding

At the board’s meeting on Tuesday, OCPS Superintendent Maria Vasquez says in the next year they are expecting to lose another 5,000 students and even more funding, which could lead to even more schools closing.

“I wish I could sit up here and say this will be the last of our consolidations,” said Vazquez. “I’m afraid that would be an untrue statement.”

School district leaders blame increased immigration enforcement, declining birth rates and state school choice vouchers as reasons for the declining enrollment. The vouchers allow parents to choose private schools or homeschooling over sending their kids to public schools. School board members say they’re all for school choice but say the problem is that they facilitate services for many of those other students, while OCPS only gets funding for the students still enrolled in their public schools.   

“We have 9,000 homeschool students now and we get zero funding for our choice office to handle those choice students, so those will be some of the things we’ll be discussing when we’re up here,” said Angie Gallo, OCPS District 1 School Board Member.

Gallo went to Tallahassee in hopes of convincing Florida lawmakers to boost public school funding when they consider their budget during the legislative session.

“Those are the conversations we’ll be having,” said Gallo. “We only get 50 cents on the dollar to transport kids. I understand we get transportation costs, but it’s still going to cost us 50 cents on the dollar to transport their kids when we get none of that funding.”

Gallo says OCPS is also looking at ways of boosting enrollment by convincing parents public school is their best option.

“We are looking at some truly innovative ways to meet kids where they are, like think of schools within a school, so we’re going to open up some co-ops as a pilot program in all seven districts,” said Gallo. 

Gallo says they’re already happy to see the State Senate passing Bill 318, which adds more oversight to the school choice voucher program. If it becomes law, she says that should make the school funding picture clearer and more transparent, something she believes will help OCPS moving forward.