![\"Superintendent](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/MIA_110aBacktoschool14NEWPPP.JPG\" "\\"Superintendent")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jose L. Dotres, talks to the media at the Dr. Rolando Espinosa K-8 Center, during the first day of school for Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) in the 2025-2026 school year, on Thursday, August 14, 2025.<\/p>\n
Pedro Portal<\/p>\n
pportal@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
In the next school year, the number of Miami-Dade students using vouchers to attend private schools will increase by about 10,000 to 82,500 and the number of students attending traditional public schools will likely decrease by 8,000 to 217,100, according to projections by the Miami-Dade public school district.<\/p>\n
The data was presented at a committee meeting Wednesday and confirms the trend of declining enrollment in one of the nation\u2019s largest school districts.<\/p>\n
Miami-Dade has long been losing enrollment at its traditional public schools. In the 2006-2007 school year, the district reported 351,700 students attending those schools. The 2026-2027 estimate of 217,100 marks a 135,000-student, or 38.3%, decline over two decades.<\/p>\n
Data captured by the school district and the state show that traditional public school enrollment has declined while use of Florida\u2019s universal school voucher program has jumped. Charter school enrollment has remained steady in recent years. Miami-Dade County Public Schools <\/p>\n
The district experienced a drop in enrollment of about 13,000 students in the 2025-26 school year. School officials have linked the dramatic decline<\/a> to fewer newly arriving immigrants from other countries, declining birth rates, and families leaving for more affordable places.<\/p>\n The data presented Wednesday at the board\u2019s budget workshop highlights that enrollment at charter schools has remained healthy and use of the state\u2019s<\/a> universal voucher<\/a> program has flourished in Miami-Dade as the traditional public school population declines. Both charter schools and private school vouchers have been championed by the Florida legislature and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as alternatives<\/a> to traditional public schools.<\/p>\n Voucher use in the county remained flat for more than a decade, hovering around 4,000, before the 2018-2019 school year. It rose by 3,000 two years in a row after the passage of the initial Family Empowerment Scholarship program in 2019, created to give students from families with limited financial resources the opportunity to attend a private school.<\/p>\n The number of students using vouchers jumped again after a 2021 law expanding voucher eligibility<\/a>, nearly doubling from 10,900 in 2020-2021 to 21,100 the next school year. Since vouchers became universally available to private school students in the 2023-2024 school year, voucher use has increased by more than 10,000 each year.<\/p>\n Charter school enrollment, which is usually included in the count for total public school enrollment, is projected to remain roughly the same at 86,400. In 2006-2007, about 12,000 students attended charter schools in Miami-Dade, according to the data.<\/p>\n With the number of students utilizing the vouchers \u2014 averaging a little over $8,000 to help fund private school tuition<\/a> \u2014 Miami-Dade County Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Ron Steiger said that, technically, more students in the county are funded by taxpayers than ever.<\/p>\n