Roughly a third of the public elementary schools in Orange County now enroll fewer students than needed to be financially stable, according to an Orlando Sentinel analysis of school district data.
Orange County Public Schools’ current enrollment is about 8,000 fewer students than it was in the spring, with empty seats in schools across the county, including in areas of the district where many campuses were, until recently, bursting at the seams.
A campus needs to fill about 65% of its seats to generate enough per-student funding from the state to be self-supporting financially, district officials say. Schools with fewer students are a drain on district finances. But nearly 40 of OCPS’ 127 elementary schools were operating under that threshold as of an August enrollment count.
Because of declining enrollment, OCPS closed seven schools in May, and school leaders say they likely will discuss shuttering more campuses in the coming years.