Seven public schools in Orange County could be shuttered at the end of this academic year as the school district grapples with a sharp drop in student enrollment.
The schools are: Union Park Middle School and Bonneville, Chickasaw, Eccleston, Meadow Woods, McCoy and Orlo Vista elementary schools, a school board member and the district’s teachers union confirmed Tuesday.
Each school currently enrolls only about half the students they have room for, with Union Park, the most empty one on the list, enrolling about 560 students on a campus meant for more than 1,400.
The Orange County School Board is to meet Tuesday to discuss the seven campuses, the “impacts of declining enrollment” and “space optimization strategy.”
If the schools are closed, they would shut at the end of the current school year with their students assigned to new schools for the 2026-27 school year.
“Nobody wants to have these conversations,” said Angie Gallo, a school board member whose district includes two of the campuses on the potential-closure list.
But public schools in Florida are funded on a per-student basis, and schools that operate at about half capacity or less typically do not generate enough money to be self-supporting and are a drain from the district’s budget.
Orange County Public Schools’ enrollment fell by about 6,500 students this year, a loss of about $50 million in state money.
“We just do not have the funding to bridge the funding gap in under-enrolled schools that don’t have the (enrollment) to pay for themselves,” she said.
The district’s decision to considering shuttering campuses comes as “schools of hope” charter schools have made pitches to move, rent free, into traditional public schools that aren’t filled with students. Such moves are allowed under a new state law, and OCPS this fall received 53 requests.
Bonneville Elementary School in east Orange, with 380 students on a campus built for 938, is one school the charter companies want to occupy.
If a charter school moved into an OCPS building, the school district could not charge for the space and would have to pick up the bill for food, custodians and transportation. Critics called have called the effort a “land grab” by charter schools that would siphon resources from traditional public schools.
The flood of of “schools of hope” notices has pushed OCPS to move quickly to decide what to do with its under-used campuses because it knows it is otherwise at risk of a charter school company claiming it, school board member Stephanie Vanos said last month.
The falling enrollment in Orange is part of a statewide trend. The Broward County school district lost about 10,000 students, for example, and appears set to close seven of its schools.
A discussion about school closures is unusual in Orange, which has been among the state’s fastest growing school districts and been adding new campuses to its roster, including a new elementary school in August.
OCPS has closed some smaller campuses in recent years as it opened larger K-8 schools in its more urban neighborhoods. But it has not proposed closing a slate of schools because of low enrollment in nearly two decades.
Clinton McCracken, the president of the district’s teacher’s union, said each of the seven schools recently has hosted a community meeting to discuss low enrollment, but he and others still want more answers.
“We do not know how decisions are being made, and the process so far has not given the level of transparency that educators and families deserve. Educators’ rights and employment must be protected, and the union is already standing on their behalf,” he wrote in a text.
OCPS has said the drop in enrollment is fueled by several factors, including the state’s rapidly expanding voucher program, which offers public dollars for private school and homeschooling, as well as falling birth rates.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.