Florida’s largest districts continue losing students

The largest five school dis­tricts in Flor­ida have seen a col­lect­ive enroll­ment decline of nearly 68,000 stu­dents from the 2023-24 school year through the 2025-26 school year, accord­ing to Feb­ru­ary fig­ures com­piled by the Lee County School Dis­trict as it pre­pares its annual budget.

Lee County is not among the largest five school dis­tricts, but, it too, has lost enroll­ment. From 2024-25 to 2025-26, the dis­trict’s enroll­ment is down 1,946 non-charter school stu­dents and 369 charter stu­dents, a total decline of 2,315 stu­dents.

The state of Flor­ida alloc­ates fund­ing to school dis­tricts based in part on enroll­ment, and dis­tricts with declin­ing enroll­ment are craft­ing budgets with an anti­cip­ated loss of state fund­ing. That loss of fund­ing will mean shuttered schools and frozen or elim­in­ated teacher pos­i­tions…

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