{"id":389149,"date":"2026-09-03T09:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T09:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/389149\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T09:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T09:16:09","slug":"orange-county-public-schools-faces-8-5m-budget-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/389149\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County Public Schools faces $8.5M budget cut"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 New details are emerging about how Orange County Public Schools plans to absorb an $8.5 million budget cut and whether teachers and staff could be losing their jobs.<\/p>\n

OCPS sent out a memo to staff members on Thursday, warning them that the cuts will soon be made at the district level.<\/p>\n

Officials say OCPS is down about 8,000 students this year \u2014 a drop the district attributes to declining birth rates, low housing turnover, and the state\u2019s voucher program. Fewer students means less state funding, and combined with a healthcare trust losing $20 million a month, the district says it has no choice but to cut $8.5 million.<\/p>\n

Individual schools will have their budgets recalculated based on enrollment \u2014 a process the district says could take a couple of weeks to finalize.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, there is not a mass layoff situation expected,\u201d says District 6 OCPS board member Stephani Vanos. \u201cThe district actually budgeted very conservatively last year, used its own numbers for projection instead of the state\u2019s numbers. And thankfully, they did that because they were much closer in estimating what would be needed this year. What I really expect to happen is just a shifting of teachers and staff to where students are so that students can be best served.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although enrollment numbers are dwindling, Vanos says no schools will close or consolidate this year, but it could be a possibility as early as winter or spring next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that our students have all of the resources they need, and we wouldn\u2019t want to cut so many teachers or services at a school,\u201d says Vanos. \u201cIt would be more beneficial to students to really consolidate so that they have the greatest number of services and support that they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

OCPS\u2019 next school board meeting is set for September 8th.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

TOP STORIES FROM WFTV CHANNEL 9<\/p>\n

\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 New details are emerging about how Orange County Public Schools plans to absorb an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[155732,2777,2646,1061,17807,17792,634,26231,44502,115,6601,30875,139,141,140,155730,155729,155731,1045],"class_list":["post-389149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-aldo","tag-channel_nine","tag-downtown_orlando","tag-eyewitness","tag-greg","tag-greg_warman","tag-local","tag-martha","tag-martha_sikowski","tag-news","tag-ocps","tag-orange_county_public_schools","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-paxton","tag-paxton_boyd","tag-stephanie_vanos","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389149","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=389149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}