{"id":231727,"date":"2026-04-14T20:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T20:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/231727\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T20:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T20:14:07","slug":"orange-schools-to-cut-200-district-level-administrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/231727\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange schools to cut 200 district-level administrators"},"content":{"rendered":"

Orange County Public Schools will cut more than 200 district-level administrators as it grapples with the impacts of declining enrollment<\/a>, an OCPS deputy superintendent said in a sobering email recently sent to staff.<\/p>\n

The district lost thousands of students this school year, will close seven schools this summer<\/a> as a result and expects enrollment to drop by another 10,000 pupils in the next five years.<\/p>\n

Now OCPS is implementing 3% cuts across all district departments, \u201cresulting in the elimination of more than 200 positions,\u201d because of enrollment-based funding losses and to avoid eliminating teaching positions, Deputy Superintendent Jose Martinez wrote to staff Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are navigating a period of significant financial constraint, and there are no painless paths through it,\u201d Martinez wrote.<\/p>\n

The email did not identify which positions would be cut but said the 200 employees\u2019 work would be absorbed by remaining staff. OCPS has about 1,300 district administrators and other support staff, OCPS spokesperson Michael Ollendorff said. So the lost jobs represent about 15% of that workforce.<\/p>\n

Ollendorff said the cuts will include the elimination of one group that oversees some of the district\u2019s more than 200 campuses.\u00a0But he declined to specify which schools and which employees would be impacted.<\/p>\n

Staff cuts will happen at the district level because \u201cleadership carries a responsibility to absorb the weight first and confront the realities others are being asked to navigate,\u201d Martinez wrote.<\/p>\n

The nation\u2019s eighth-largest school district, OCPS has said its enrollment crisis can be blamed on lower birth rates, a loss of immigrant students and the increasing popularity of state-funded voucher scholarships for private school and homeschooling services. Because state school funding is based on a per-pupil formula, fewer students mean less money for the district, which said it lost about $41 million this school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have had to make decisions that reflect our current reality, not the one we wish we were still in,\u201d Martinez wrote.<\/p>\n

And cutting so many positions is not easy, he added. \u201cThey required real restructuring, real loss, and real change across departments.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March, the Orange County School Board voted to shutter seven half-empty schools \u2014 Union Park Middle School and Bonneville, Chickasaw, Eccleston, Meadow Woods, McCoy and Orlo Vista elementary schools. Superintendent Maria Vazquez has said the district may need to close more schools<\/a> next year.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, OCPS also decided to cut SAFE coordinators, staff who provide mental health and other intervention services to middle and high school students. Many of those positions had been paid for by federal COVID-19 relief money, which has now run out.<\/p>\n

Those cuts were also \u201crooted in funding constraints,\u201d Martinez wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are not easy choices. But they are necessary ones. And we will get through this,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The county\u2019s teachers union reacted angrily to the SAFE coordinator cuts, posting \u201cmake better choices\u201d on social media and sending the same message in letters to the school board. The union also urged teachers to wear black on Monday in a sign of opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cEliminating roles and reducing services that address student safety, mental health, and well-being is a dangerous direction. These supports are not optional. They are essential,\u201d reads the letter that Clinton McCracken, the president of the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association, shared.<\/p>\n

The letter also said that the school district in neighboring Brevard County is cutting more than twice what OCPS is in district spending, which makes the union question whether Orange could trim more from its administration and try to preserve the SAFE coordinator jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the district has stated that reductions are being made, the scale matters,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orange County Public Schools will cut more than 200 district-level administrators as it grapples with the impacts of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[113,114,266,115,139,141,140,109],"class_list":["post-231727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-education","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231727","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=231727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}