Sumter County Schools has bucked a trend of decreasing public school enrollment in Central Florida. Enrollment in that district increased by 375 students.
According to an analysis of enrollment data by Central Florida Public Media, public schools in the region collectively lost more than 18,000 students this fall.
Enrollment is down in Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Volusia, Brevard, Flagler, Lake, Marion and Polk County Schools with most districts blaming the voucher program.
But in Sumter County, Superintendent Logan Brown said schools in that district are seeing the opposite. There’s a boom in students driven by population growth in the communities surrounding The Villages, which has driven enrollment in both public and charter schools in the district.
“We've had to add additional classroom buildings at a couple of the locations, and it's something that we're really embracing and excited about,” Brown said.
Along with the population increase, Brown said he’s introduced programs that help build relationships between families and district staff which improves student retention.
“If you get a student in pre-K and you're able to establish that trust with the families in your community. I think it goes a long way into keeping those students in our public school system for their entire educational career,” Brown said.
Brown said he’s also introduced leadership training for older students, which also helps with retention, as the unique training prepares students for college and careers, something that families put a lot of value in.
“Just this year, we rolled out a Leader in Me framework for our curriculum that's based on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. And our goal is we want to produce academically high-performing students, but we want high character students as well,” Brown said. “Whenever they graduate and leave our school district, it's going to be something where they can go immediately into the workforce.”
While Sumter is increasing its enrollment, education experts are sounding the alarm on the region’s net loss of students. They warn that if Central Florida’s public schools don’t do something now to turn around dropping student enrollment, it could lead to under-resourced classrooms, teacher layoffs, and even closures of schools.
Districts largely blame the state’s voucher program for the public school enrollment drop. The program pays for eligible students to receive a fully funded private or home school education.
But Governor Ron DeSantis and other proponents of vouchers say competition between public and private schools is a good thing as it drives public schools to innovate in order to keep and attract students.
“I think it's healthy that schools compete for students,” DeSantis said last month. “I think it's healthy that a school is going to be in a situation where, if a charter school is offering better programs, and the parents have more confidence then, and they're losing students to that, then they're going to have to do something to earn the trust of those parents back.”
In total, the Florida Department of Education estimates 1.4 million Florida students now attend a school of choice. More than 500,000 attend a private school on a voucher, and more than 155,000 are homeschooled.
A recent report from the Florida Charter Institute estimated 645,000 empty seats at public schools in the state.
