{"id":26692,"date":"2025-10-30T15:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T15:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/26692\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T15:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T15:48:08","slug":"leon-county-is-considering-school-closures-as-vouchers-impact-enrollment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/26692\/","title":{"rendered":"Leon County is considering school closures as vouchers impact enrollment"},"content":{"rendered":"

An opinion column by longtime Leon County school board member Alva Smith in the Tallahassee Democrat earlier this month laid out the problems<\/a> ahead for Leon County Schools.<\/p>\n

She cited changes that she says need to happen now as the district\u2019s enrollment keeps creeping downward. She noted that the district\u2019s finances are struggling, with operating reserves down to the minimum allowable amount required by state law. <\/p>\n

She wrote that the district\u2019s operational costs must come down and at least some of those savings should go toward employee and teacher raises.<\/p>\n

A weekly deep dive into Tallahassee’s most talked about news topic. Hosted by Gina Jordan every Thursday.<\/p>\n

Smith acknowledged that this is a necessary pivot because the state\u2019s school choice voucher program is resulting in less funding for traditional public schools. <\/p>\n

The money that used to go to traditional schools now follows the student. That means it goes to private schools, to public charter schools (which are not run by the district), or to homeschooling costs.<\/p>\n

Smith brought up the prospect of Leon County possibly having to close some schools. That\u2019s not a new thing in Leon. Smith pointed out during a recent meeting that the district has closed three schools in the past 20 years.<\/p>\n

Bellevue Middle School was the last to close in 2010. That was due to budget cuts and the school being under enrolled. Brevard Elementary closed in 2007 due to declining enrollment. Wesson Elementary was also closed in 2007 for various reasons including low academic performance and the need to consolidate schools. These schools were located on the south and west sides in predominantly Black neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s column was published, then the school board met to discuss the agenda for the next day\u2019s school board meeting. Smith brought handouts full of data, and she explained her reasoning for the column she wrote. Salaries were a big part of the discussion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not kept up at the rate of other districts,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe\u2019re not keeping up with giving our teachers what they need.\u201d <\/p>\n

She compared Leon to neighboring Okaloosa County, where a similar number of students are served at fewer schools with teachers there making an average of $6,000 more.<\/p>\n

Leon recently offered teachers a raise of about $40 a month based on additional money provided by the state, but members of the Leon Classroom Teachers Association voted to reject the offer as not being sufficient.<\/p>\n

Smith went on to explain that enrollment numbers in the district have hovered around the 32-thousand mark for the last 15 years. But a couple of charter schools have grown significantly. They are the Tallahassee School of Math & Science, and both campuses of the School of Arts and Sciences. If you take away the enrollment of those charter schools, she says the overall district enrollment is down.<\/p>\n

Smith says a dozen of the district\u2019s 51 schools are operating below capacity, and here\u2019s where the state\u2019s Schools of Hope program gets interesting. This program allows high-performing charter school companies to operate in areas that have low-performing schools. The state is taking that a step further to include those schools that are not operating at full capacity.<\/p>\n

Smith says six approved Schools of Hope providers have started sending letters to districts requesting to co-locate within existing schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of these \u2018Schools of Hope\u2019 can request to co-locate in your district with that (under capacity) school, and you must accept them. They also don\u2019t pay rent,\u201d Smith told board members. \u201cSo, as we look at our under capacity schools and the fact of possible consolidation, we have two choices. We can talk about it\u2026and we can decide on our own terms what goes on with our schools, or the state can decide for us. That\u2019s basically what we\u2019re looking at.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Speaking Of, we talk more about the situation in Leon County, and we hear from Patrice Iatarola, associate professor of Education Policy and Evaluation at Florida State University.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen school closures of my own elementary school, of my cousin\u2019s elementary school that was ultimately razed for new housing. Closing schools, it feels like there\u2019s a spiritual dead space around it,\u201d Iatarola says.<\/p>\n

She says the impact is felt by kids academically and socially, and it\u2019s also hard economically on a community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may increase student absenteeism, especially when you\u2019re starting to deal with some of the transportation issues that they might have to face going to a new school outside of their neighborhood,\u201d Iatarola says. \u201cIt\u2019s also about the receiving school and preparing them that you\u2019re going to be having these kids and they may or may not look different, perform different\u2026and how do you as a school be sensitive to different needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says steps should be taken during the planning phase of a school closure to engage the community and be transparent about the decision-making and the timeline.<\/p>\n

Click LISTEN above to hear the full segment of Speaking Of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An opinion column by longtime Leon County school board member Alva Smith in the Tallahassee Democrat earlier this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-26692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692","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=26692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}