{"id":196151,"date":"2026-03-18T10:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T10:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/196151\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T10:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T10:23:07","slug":"focus-turns-to-middle-school-enrollment-at-key-biscayne-k-8-key-biscayne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/196151\/","title":{"rendered":"Focus turns to middle school enrollment at Key Biscayne K-8 | Key Biscayne"},"content":{"rendered":"

Declining enrollment in Key Biscayne’s K-8 Middle School has “raised the biggest alarms,” according to Robert Duzoglou, who represented the Education Advisory Board<\/a> in its annual report to the Village Council last week.<\/p>\n

“Each year it’s getting worse,” he said, while reviewing recent performance data. “This is something we seriously need to look at before it sort of dies on the branch. If we don’t do something urgently, this is going to be a great problem and a great loss for the community.”<\/p>\n

To start with, the K-8 Center currently<\/a> has 803 students, or 69% of the total capacity of 1,150. There are 2,700 Key Biscayne residents ages 5-14, meaning the school only serves 29% of that local population.<\/p>\n

\"image3.jpeg\"<\/p>\n

“We can serve a lot more residents,\u201d Duzoglou said. \u201cThey’re not using our school system … we could do a lot better.<\/p>\n

“At the middle school (level) is where we see a great exodus.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, there are 144 fourth-grade students (17.93% of the school’s population) and 136 fifth graders, or 18.93%.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s a remarkable fall-off.<\/p>\n

There are just 21 sixth-grade students (2.61%), 29 seventh graders (3.61%) and 28 eighth graders (3.48%).<\/p>\n

A second alarm, Duzoglou said, lies in the rankings.<\/p>\n

He said the elementary school used to be ranked No. 1.<\/p>\n

“Now, it’s 13 and sliding,” he said.<\/p>\n

Middle school used to be No. 2.<\/p>\n

“Now it’s 32,\u201d he said. \u201cWe’ve been sliding. This is terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"image8.jpeg\"<\/p>\n

As far as the primary subjects:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Math proficiency: 90% (compared to district) through fifth grade. “Wonderful,” he said, “but in 6th through 8th grade, it goes down to 70%.”<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0English proficiency: 78% through 5th grade. “And for middle school, 58%. Wow! Terrible, right?” Duzoglou asked.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Science proficiency: 81% through 5th grade. Middle school is down to 34%. “Very alarming. Terrible,” he said.<\/p>\n

The good news, Duzoglou said, “We’re ranked an A school. But, so are 64% of the other schools, so what kind of A is that?”<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is leadership, programming and funding issues, he noted.<\/p>\n

Councilman Frank Caplan said those factors aren’t directed to just the K-8 Center, but is being felt statewide.<\/p>\n

“Part of this is that we are the victim of our (own) success,\u201d Duzoglou said. \u201c(After strong programs at MAST Academy and at St. Agnes, for example) That sort of sucked the air out of (our) public school. We have to shift our focus urgently with the middle school.”<\/p>\n

The Education Advisory Board has listed K-8’s competition coming from MAST, Carrollton, Belen Jesuit, Gulliver Prep, St. Agnes, Motivating Minds, SCORE Academy and Ransom Everglades.<\/p>\n

\"image5.png\"<\/p>\n

Other factors are Florida’s low teacher compensation, ranked 50th nationally, and a student investment equal to about $12,000 per year, ranking in the bottom 10 nationally.<\/p>\n

In addition, Duzoglou said, poor facilities, a dated structure, the lack of a STEAM lab, technology shortcomings (computers) and maintenance (aesthetics) are among the possible causes for student enrollment decline.<\/p>\n

With less students, there comes less funding.<\/p>\n

“It’s a death spiral that gets worse and worse,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said one of the root causes is the school needs a specific identity, especially with its Cambridge program.<\/p>\n

Among the K-8 Center’s strengths, Duzoglou touted its proximity, safe community, parent interest, school principal leadership, school district interest and alignment, available investment potential and strong village identity and pride.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s time to really look at our education system and see what we can get done,\u201d Duzoglou said. \u201cI really urge the Council to take action. It affects everything, our real estate values \u2026 everything.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Declining enrollment in Key Biscayne’s K-8 Middle School has “raised the biggest alarms,” according to Robert Duzoglou, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[55784,90999,126,61336,123,125,124,12037,86284],"class_list":["post-196151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-enrollment","tag-kbk8-center","tag-key-biscayne","tag-key-biscayne-k8-center","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-middle-school","tag-school-enrollment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}