![\"Miami](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIA_10082426MiamiKillian.JPG\" "\\"Miami")
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Miami Killian Senior High School students Jamarquis Reid, 15, left, and Jayden Ramirez, 16, right, work on their design assignment during the Digital Design art class. Miami Killian has experienced the fastest-declining enrollment of any public school in Miami-Dade County, losing more than 80% of its students over the past 20 years.<\/p>\n
Carl Juste<\/p>\n
cjuste@miamiherald<\/p>\n
Lisa Oberlander fondly recalls her time at Miami Killian Senior High in the 1980s. The school was bustling with a large, high-achieving and diverse student body. Its biggest issue back then was overcrowding.<\/p>\n
The scene in her first year teaching a Digital Arts class at her alma mater has been somewhat different.<\/p>\n
In the middle of one of the school\u2019s cavernous \u201clearning lab\u201d spaces, eight students huddled in boxy armchairs, propping laptops on their knees and clicking through a design app. Surrounding them were dozens of empty desks in the darkened, unused parts of the room.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s every day at Killian \u2014 more space than the students could ever use. Going from 3,700 students in 2004 to just 430 to start this year, the school\u2019s enrollment has declined more, and faster, than any other in Miami-Dade. The state estimates it\u2019s using only 20% of its building\u2019s total capacity.<\/p>\n
![\"Miami](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIA_09082426MiamiKillian.JPG\" "\\"MIA_09082426MiamiKillian.JPG\\"")
Miami Killian Senior High School teacher Lisa Oberlander, looks over the shoulders of Jamarquis Reid, 15, left, and Jayden Ramirez, 16, right, during the Digital Design art class. The school has lost 80 percent of its student body in the past two decades. Carl Juste cjuste@miamiherald <\/p>\n
There are many theories as to how Killian got here. But an obvious, overarching answer is school choice. As Florida and Miami-Dade have increasingly given families the freedom to bypass their neighborhood school \u2014 whether it\u2019s via charter schools, private school vouchers or open enrollment at other public schools \u2014 Killian has become the Kendall community\u2019s odd man out.<\/p>\n
Like many other public school districts in the country, Miami-Dade County Public Schools has been bleeding students in recent years, facing headwinds from lower birth and immigration rates as well as increased school choice initiatives. Traditional public school enrollment in the district is down from 352,000 in 2006-07 to about 217,000 to start this year.<\/a><\/p>\n While Killian is the starkest example of that decline, its survival now depends on school choice \u2014 a new sports magnet program that started this year.<\/p>\n Oberlander\u2019s group is one of the founding classes for Killian\u2019s \u201cSportsPLEX\u201d magnet program<\/a>, the district\u2019s Hail Mary effort to reverse the school\u2019s enrollment woes. Leaning on Killian\u2019s strong history in athletics, the program centers on the growing, multi-trillion-dollar<\/a> business of sports.<\/p>\n By the end of the class, she said the students will be directly involved in promoting Killian athletics, designing their own shoes and even entire uniforms.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery Sunday when you\u2019re watching TV, you\u2019re watching billions of dollars in action that has nothing to do with the players. So, as they\u2019re learning that, and they see the real, live people that are involved in that every day, you see the excitement,\u201d Jorge Parra, the school\u2019s new principal, told the Herald.<\/p>\n If that excitement translates to enrollment, the program could point the district, and others around the country facing similar issues, toward one possible fix.<\/p>\n If it fails, Killian could join the many campuses shut down by the district. This summer, the school board OK\u2019d plans to close nine schools, and leadership has indicated more are coming. Last year, Killian was on a list with other campuses<\/a> that appear to be eyed for closure. This year, Killian didn\u2019t appear in any district list<\/a> for possible closures.<\/p>\n For now, the district is \u201csteadfast committed\u201d to SportsPLEX, according to Magda Pereira, a former Killian principal who is now the district\u2019s top magnet official.<\/p>\n How did Killian get here?<\/p>\n Killian\u2019s assigned attendance zone is not small.<\/p>\n Running through most of Kendall, it stretches from Sunset Drive all the way down to Palmetto Estates. There are rows upon rows of million-plus-dollar single family homes, two public libraries, the largest campuses for Miami Dade College and Baptist Health, three golf courses and a couple dozen public parks and green spaces.<\/p>\n A total of 3,175 high school students who attend public school or charter schools live there \u2013 likely hundreds more attend one of Miami-Dade\u2019s growing private schools, though the data on them is unavailable.<\/p>\n Only a fraction of them \u2014 323 \u2014 choose to attend Killian.<\/p>\n Administrators, community members and alumni have plenty of theories about why that is, but, according to Parra, it boils down to one word: choice.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot more opportunities across the board \u2013 not just charters and private, but within our schools. [Parents] have so many choices that they can be selective and they become very educated on what they want for each child,\u201d Parra said.<\/p>\n Indeed, Kendall parents have been selective.<\/p>\n Within the attendance boundary of Killian, 431 of the high-schoolers attend charter schools; 2,421 attend other public high schools.<\/p>\n Three different public high schools \u2013 Coral Reef Senior High, Terra Environmental Research Institute and Palmetto Senior High \u2013 each enroll more students from Killian\u2019s boundary than Killian itself. All three high schools are operating at or above capacity.<\/p>\n Maria Linares-Hemelberg, an alum and former Killian teacher who was surplussed in 2020, saw the changes first hand.<\/p>\n The opening of Coral Reef Senior High, dubbed Miami\u2019s \u201cmega magnet\u201d in the late 1990s within Killian\u2019s attendance boundary, was the first hit, Linares-Hemelberg said. Before that, the two sought-after academic programs in South Dade were Killian and Palmetto. The new school pulled many students from the southern part of Kendall.<\/p>\n Then, in 2009, the school district opened Terra, another entirely magnet school that sits on the northern edge of Killian\u2019s attendance boundary. While Killian\u2019s enrollment decline is relatively steady across 22 years\u2019 worth of data, it lost the most students shortly after Terra opened \u2013 347 students in 2010-2011 and 304 the next year.<\/p>\n Coral Reef, Terra and Palmetto score above average on most tested subjects, per 10th grade results from state assessments. Terra and Coral Reef, both exclusively magnet schools, score particularly high.<\/p>\n Killian\u2019s students recently posted below average test scores, but by the state\u2019s school grading standards it is doing well. Last school year it received a \u201cB\u201d rating from the state, and the two years before that it got \u201cA\u201d ratings.<\/p>\n \u2018The school that got lost\u2019<\/p>\n Though much has been made of the rise of \u201cschool choice\u201d options like charter schools and vouchers in recent years, Killian\u2019s current enrollment crisis has as much to do with the district and state\u2019s own public \u201cchoice\u201d models as anything else.<\/p>\n The first big policy change came in 2017, when the state required school districts to let families take advantage of an \u201copen enrollment\u201d system. In 2025, the school board passed a more flexible system that makes it even easier for parents to pick and choose their child\u2019s school, bypassing their neighborhood school all together.<\/p>\n Chuck Todd, a journalist and former host of NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d is one of several prominent Killian alums \u2013 alongside former University of Florida President Kent Fuchs and a roster\u2019s worth of former MLB and NFL players.<\/p>\n Technically, Todd\u2019s first national television appearance was as the Killian band\u2019s drum major his senior year when they won a competition to lead the Orange Bowl parade.<\/p>\n He thinks the core issue has been a lack of leadership in navigating this new landscape. The \u201csuspects with blood on their hands\u201d are in Tallahassee and the district\u2019s administrative office, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of politicians have just pandered to parents without any foresight on how to do this the right way. Whatever you think of how Killian is now, this is a nice neighborhood. Why wouldn\u2019t you want this school to succeed? How did this fail? How did this become the school that got lost,\u201d Todd asked.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you were to tell me the neighborhood went to crap, and the school was down to 600. You\u2019d be like, \u2018Oh, okay, I know what happened,\u2019\u201d Todd said. \u201cThat\u2019s not this.\u201d<\/p>\n At a recent Killian football game, Chuck and Ann Tait, grandparents of a running back on the team, wore green \u201cKillian vs. Everybody\u201d shirts. The message is partly informed by Killian\u2019s enrollment situation.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of kids from that area, they don\u2019t come to Killian. It\u2019s hard to draw them there,\u201d Chuck Tait, a 69-year-old retired Miami-Dade police officer, said.<\/p>\n For their family, they said they like the small class sizes that Killian\u2019s enrollment level affords. But they\u2019re worried about charter schools potentially threatening the school\u2019s future.<\/p>\n \u201cCharter schools \u2013 I think they\u2019re killing all public schools,\u201d Chuck Tait said.<\/p>\n But Linares-Hemelberg, who now is a teacher at private school Wesminster Christian, pointed out that as enrollment declined, the school\u2019s reputation also took some hits. She said veteran teachers recalled a \u201csnowball effect\u201d after a high-profile violent incident. In 2015, a 17-year-old girl who was allegedly traumatized at her previous school<\/a> stabbed<\/a> 15-year-old football star<\/a> Deandre Johnson in the school cafeteria.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter that stabbing, I heard the school just went kind of downhill,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Bruce Baker, program director of the University of Miami\u2019s Department of Teaching and Learning, said the decision of families to pull out of Killian can create a \u201creputational death spiral.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy guess is the families making those choices are higher income and more educated, leaving behind at Killian families with less agency to make those moves. That then becomes kind of a reputational death spiral. That is an inequity that the district really should be trying to figure out how to solve because these are all district schools,\u201d Baker said.<\/p>\n As the years have passed, Killian\u2019s percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, the closest proxy metric to wealth of student families, has increased. At 49% in February, that\u2019s higher than all nearby high schools except Miami Southridge.<\/p>\n No high-profile violent incidents have occurred at Killian in several years, not since a freshman girl was beaten up in the cafeteria in 2018 \u2013 but a bad rap can be a tough thing to shake.<\/p>\n A viral Facebook post from Mark Barnett, the school\u2019s activities director, rallied alumni of \u201cthe K\u201d to support the school, insisting that no plans were in place to close it. It also highlighted school safety.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is clean, safe, and there is no chaos at all. The admin team that\u2019s running the school has done an excellent job. Our students are in uniform, wearing their IDs, and behaving as well as any students in this country,\u201d Barnett wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we need now is our kids back.\u201d<\/p>\n Alumni and community members shared the post more than 200 times.<\/p>\n Students, parents and alumni packed both sets of stands at Sam Burley Park on a balmy August night for Killian\u2019s \u201cWeek 0\u201d preseason game against crosstown rival Miami Southridge.<\/p>\n Though it was technically a home game for Southridge, the park is also where Killian is playing its home games this season.<\/p>\n Southridge\u2019s roster stretched twice as far as Killian\u2019s on the sideline. It had more than 2,100 students in February \u2013 four times Killian\u2019s enrollment at the time \u2013 and about twice as many football players that Friday. Southridge\u2019s fan section was larger, mostly because more students showed up.<\/p>\n Neither of those disparities mattered much. The Killian fans cheered every bit as loud, and the football team played Southridge \u2013 which features three highly-rated defensive line prospects \u2013 essentially even. If not for a broken play touchdown after a Killian player blocked a Southridge punt, the Cougars would have tied their rivals.<\/p>\n The crowds rose to their feet and roared at each pivotal moment. Students chattered and clustered in groups dancing to Miami rapper Saucy Santana\u2019s social media hit \u201cQuiet on the Creek.\u201d<\/a> On the field, both teams showed flashes of talent, made big plays and had a chance to win at the end.<\/p>\n It was a slice of the modern day high school Americana.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what draws Randal Hill \u2013 a Killian 1987 graduate and former University of Miami and Miami Dolphins wide receiver \u2013 back to watch Killian games.<\/p>\n He sat in the stands watching and reminiscing with three former teammates. Wayne White, a running back from the class of \u201884, flew down from South Carolina and missed the first week of his hunting season to be there with his friends.<\/p>\n Hill said he thinks that \u201cpolitics\u201d was the main reason Killian\u2019s enrollment was down, and sports plays a role. As politicians favor more pro-school choice policies, programs at elite private schools \u2014 many of which were attended by said politicians \u2014 often have more resources to attract top level talent. That wasn\u2019t the case in Hill\u2019s time,<\/p>\n \u201cPeople that look at the heyday of the University of Miami \u2014 the majority of the players, I would say 90 to 95%, came from public schools,\u201d Hill said.<\/p>\n The numbers bear it out: out of Florida\u2019s top 50 senior football prospects, ranked by 247 Sports<\/a>, this year, 26 attend traditional public schools; 23 attend private schools and one goes to a charter school. In 2007, 41 of the top 50 attended traditional schools; the other nine went to private schools.<\/p>\n The crowds aren\u2019t quite what they were, either. Hill and White guessed their crowds were up to five times as large as the one at Sam Burley Park \u2013 10,000 to 15,000 for a big game.<\/p>\n But the games still bring together old friends. One Southridge alum even came over to join Hill, White and their friends during the game.<\/p>\n They\u2019re not sure what they would do if the school ever closed down.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be a shame \u2014 a travesty. It\u2019s a lot of memories there,\u201d Jerry Junious, a former running back from the class of \u201887, said.<\/p>\n In a classroom at Killian lined with computers, a dozen students tweaked prototype flyers for various school sports events \u2013 a volleyball game, soccer tryouts, the next varsity football game \u2013 as part of teacher Michael Moreno\u2019s Digital Business Foundations course.<\/p>\n The students prompted Google\u2019s artificial intelligence-powered large language model, Gemini, to create the flyers for them.<\/p>\n Their work needed some tweaking. The AI mixed up the colors of an opposing team. But their flyers, and the magnet program as a whole, is still a work in progress. For the most part, the students seemed excited to learn from their teacher.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m ready to learn about, like, money and all that \u2013 how the money works with sports. I know a lot of money comes out of sports,\u201d ninth-grader Vian Gimenez, 14, said.<\/p>\n In Oberlander\u2019s class, too \u2014 where students aren\u2019t allowed to use AI \u2014 the work has already gotten her students thinking beyond the field of play.<\/p>\n Jamarquis Reid, a 10th-grade wide receiver with multiple Division 1 offers in hand, had just made a logo for a football card business. Alan, a 9th-grader interested in photography, made a logo for his own business in that field.<\/p>\n![\"chart](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1788082941_971_thumbnail.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Miami](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIA_02082426MiamiKillian.JPG\" "\\"MIA_02082426MiamiKillian.JPG\\"")
Miami Killian Senior High School Principal Jorge Parra at the entrance of the school. Killian has experienced the fastest-declining enrollment and has established a sports industry magnet program to try and increase enrollment. Carl Juste cjuste@miamiherald <\/p>\n![\"Herald](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/10-09172012-30001113AA.JPG\" "\\"10-09172012-30001113AA.JPG\\"")
Herald archive image of students in Killian High\u2019s cafeteria. Joe Rimkus, Jr. Miami Herald <\/p>\n![\"Miami](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0806-edited-lighter.jpg\" "\\"IMG_0806-edited-lighter.jpg\\"")
Miami Killian Senior High football fans Ann Tait and Chuck Tait watch their grandson\u2019s first football game of the season on Aug. 14. Austin Horn <\/p>\n![\"Miami](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0012014558.JPG\" "\\"0012014558.JPG\\"")
Miami Herald archive photo of Miami Killian High from March 26, 1998. Pedro Portal Miami Herald A tradition of sports<\/p>\n![\"Miami](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/KillianFootball.jpg\" "\\"KillianFootball.jpg\\"")
Miami Killian Senior High\u2019s defense lines up against Miami Southridge Senior High on Aug. 14. Austin Horn <\/p>\n![\"Mel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Hill&coKillian.png\" "\\"Hill&coKillian.png\\"")
Mel Graham, Wayne White, Jerry Junious and Randal Hill watch a football game between their alma mater, Miami Killian Senior High and Miami Southridge Senior High Aug. 14. Austin Horn <\/p>\n![\"Pictured](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9753070161.JPG\" "\\"9753070161.JPG\\"")
Pictured at the 1997 state basketball championship semifinal, Killian’s Steve Blake brings the ball down court against OViedo’s Aaron Thomas. Blake went on to play in the NBA for more than a decade. JOE RIMKUS JR MHS Can school choice save Killian?<\/p>\n![\"Miami](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIA_06082426MiamiKillian.JPG\" "\\"MIA_06082426MiamiKillian.JPG\\"")
Miami Killian Senior High School teacher Mr. Michael Moreno (not seen) assists students as they use Google\u2019s AI tool Gemini to work on a design project during a Digital Business Foundations class in the school\u2019s new sports marketing magnet program. Carl Juste cjuste@miamiherald <\/p>\n
![\"Miami](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MIA_13082426MiamiKillian.JPG\" "\\"MIA_13082426MiamiKillian.JPG\\"")
Miami Killian Senior High School Principal Jorge Parra walks the school’s hallways. Parra says he has dozens out tours lined-up for local middle schoolers to visit their new sports marketing magnet. Carl Juste cjuste@miamiherald <\/p>\n