by Laura Pappano, The Hechinger Report
November 6, 2025
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As principal of Hartsfield Elementary College within the Leon County College District, John Olson is not only the lead educator, however on this period of fast-expanding college selection, additionally its chief salesperson.
He works to drum up enrollment by chatting with guardian and church teams, providing non-public excursions and giving Hartsfield dad and mom his cellular phone quantity. He fields calls on nights, weekends and holidays. With the constructing at simply 61 p.c capability, Olson is frank concerning the hustle required: “Customer support is essential.”
It’s no secret that many public faculties are in a battle for college kids. As college began in Florida this August, massive districts, together with Hillsborough, Miami-Dade and Orange, reported hundreds fewer college students, representing drops of greater than 3 p.c yr over yr. In Leon County, enrollment was down 8 p.c from the tip of final yr.
A part of the difficulty is the decline within the variety of school-age youngsters, each right here and throughout the nation. However there’s additionally the rising recognition of college selection in Florida and elsewhere — and what which means for college budgets. Leon County’s leaders anticipate chopping about $6 million subsequent yr until the state will increase its funds, which might imply lowered providers for college kids and even college closures.
Different Florida college districts are additionally trimming budgets, and a few have closed faculties. As districts scramble for college kids, some are hiring consulting companies to assist recruit, and likewise making an attempt to promote seats in current courses to homeschoolers. There may be additionally the instability of scholars incessantly switching faculties — and of recent constitution or voucher faculties that open after which shut down, or by no means open in any respect as promised.
Two years after the Florida Legislature expanded eligibility for college vouchers to all college students, no matter household earnings, practically 500,000 children within the state now obtain vouchers value about $8,000 every to spend on non-public or house training, based on Step Up For College students, the nonprofit that administers the majority of the scholarships. And Florida’s Tax Credit score Scholarship, created in 2001 to permit companies to make a contribution to personal college tuition, is the mannequin for the brand new federal college voucher program, handed this summer time as a part of Republicans’ “one huge, stunning invoice.” This system, which is able to go into impact in 2027, lets people in collaborating states contribute as much as $1,700 per yr to assist qualifying households pay for personal college in trade for a 1:1 tax credit score.
“We’re in that subsequent section of public training,” mentioned Keith Jacobs of Step Up For College students, who recruits public college districts to supply up their providers and courses on its academic market. “Gone are the times when a authorities establishment or your zoned neighborhood college had the authority to assign a toddler to that college.”
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That’s an issue for Leon County Faculties, which boasts a strong “B” score from the state and 5 excessive faculties within the high 20 p.c of U.S. Information’ nationwide rankings. The district, situated within the Florida panhandle, serves a inhabitants of round 30,000 college students, 44 p.c of whom are Black, 43 p.c white and 6 p.c Hispanic.
“There’s simply not sufficient cash to fund two parallel packages, one for public faculties and one for personal faculties,” mentioned Rocky Hanna, the Leon County Faculties superintendent.
Over the previous few years, the Legislature has elevated state and native funding for constitution faculties and created new guidelines to encourage extra to open. (Constitution faculties are public faculties which are independently operated; the Trump administration lately introduced a $60 million improve in constitution college funding this yr, together with extra aggressive grants.)
However vouchers are the large disrupter. The nonprofit Florida Coverage Institute initiatives annual voucher spending in Florida will hit $5 billion this yr. In Leon County, cash redirected from district college budgets to vouchers has ballooned from $3.2 million in 2020-21 to almost $38 million this tutorial yr, based on state and district figures. Enrollment in native constitution faculties has additionally ticked up, as has state per-pupil cash directed to them, from $12 million to $15 million over that point.
As a mark of how the panorama is shifting, Step Up For College students is now serving to districts market in-person courses to homeschoolers on the group’s Amazon-like market to fill seats and seize some cash. Jacobs mentioned Osceola County put its complete Okay-12 course catalog on the positioning. A yr of math at a Miami elementary college? It’s $1,028.16. And simply $514.08 for science, writing or P.E.
“A pupil can come take a category for 9 weeks, for a semester, for a yr,” mentioned Jacobs, including that 30 districts have signed on. They’re considering, he mentioned, “if we are able to’t have them full-time, now we have them part-time.”
Leon County is contemplating signing on, mentioned Hanna, “to mainly supply our programs à la carte.” It may very well be a recruitment software, mentioned Marcus Nicolas, vice chair of the county’s college board. “If we give them a chance to smell the tradition of the varsity they usually prefer it, it might probably carry that child again full-time.”
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Due to his shrinking funds, Hanna is taking a look at cuts to IT, athletics, arts, counselors, social employees and particular tutors for struggling college students, together with exploring college closings or consolidations.
One other problem: With extra college choices, a rising variety of college students are leaving charters or non-public faculties and enrolling within the district mid-year. But state allocations are primarily based on October and February enrollment counts.
Final yr, 2,513 college students — about 8 p.c of Leon County’s district enrollment — entered after February. “These are 2,500 college students we don’t obtain any cash for,” Hanna mentioned at an August college board assembly.
Public faculties do quite a bit nicely, however have been gradual to share that, mentioned Nicolas. “We obtained lazy, and we obtained complacent, and we took without any consideration that folks would select us as a result of we’re the neighborhood college,” he mentioned.
At the same time as extra dad and mom select non-public voucher faculties, it’s not essentially straightforward for them to find out if these faculties are performing nicely. Though Florida State College evaluates the state’s Tax Credit score Scholarship program, its report lags by about two years. It consists of an appendix with voucher faculties’ take a look at scores, however there isn’t a consequence for low efficiency. And scores can’t be in contrast, as a result of despite the fact that faculties should take a look at college students in grades 3 to 10, the colleges choose which take a look at to offer.
The end result, mentioned Carolyn Herrington, director of the Training Coverage Middle at Florida State College, who has written a few of the analysis studies, is that “the one actual metric right here is guardian satisfaction,” which she mentioned “is just not enough.”
But many dad and mom like the thought of college selection. In keeping with a ballot launched final month by EdChoice, a faculty selection advocacy group, simply over half of all People and 62 p.c of fogeys broadly favor college vouchers.
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Mom Carrie Gaudio, who attended the native constitution college her dad and mom helped to discovered, was shocked when her son Ross visited Hartsfield Elementary, a Title I college that serves a excessive share of low-income households — and beloved it.
Earlier than enrolling him, nevertheless, she and her husband, Ben Boyter, studied the enrollment scenario. The college was underneath capability, however they observed extra college students coming annually.
“We felt like in the event that they ended up having to shut a faculty it wouldn’t be one which’s had continuous will increase in enrollment,” she mentioned, and added, “it’s an actual bummer that you need to think about that, you can’t simply think about, ‘Are these individuals form? Is my child comfy right here? Will we really feel protected right here?’”
Certainly, a faculty {that a} guardian chooses one yr might shut the following.
That’s what occurred final yr to Kenia Martinez. Since fall 2022, her two sons had attended a constitution college run by Constitution Faculties USA, among the many largest for-profit constitution operators within the state. Final spring, she realized from a trainer that the varsity, Renaissance Academy, was shutting down.
Beforehand named Governor’s Constitution Academy, Renaissance lately obtained a “D” grade, and noticed enrollment fall from 420 college students in 2020-21 to 220 final yr. It additionally ran deficits, with a damaging internet place of $1.9 million on the finish of the 2023-24 college yr, based on the newest state audit report. It closed final Could.
The college constructing was to re-open as Tallahassee Preparatory Academy — a non-public college — which was marketed on its web site as a STEM college for “superior learners” that may cost a charge, starting from $1,500 to $3,200, along with the cash paid by means of a voucher.
The college was to be run not by Constitution Faculties USA however by Discovery Science Faculties, which operates a number of STEM constitution faculties within the state. The deal revealed a doable exit technique for faltering charters: conversion to a non-public voucher college that will get state cash, however with out the requirement of state exams, grades or licensed lecturers — in different phrases, with out accountability.
But as this college yr started, the constructing remained darkish. The car parking zone was vacant. There was no response to the doorbell, or to emails or telephone calls made to the contact data on the brand new college’s web site. Discovery Science Faculties’ telephone quantity and e-mail weren’t in service, and emails to founder Yalcin Akin and board president David Fortna went unanswered. A Constitution Faculties USA spokesperson, Colleen Reynolds, wrote in an e-mail that “CUSA is just not concerned with the constructing situated the place the previous Renaissance Academy Constructing stands” and didn’t present extra clarification on why state audit studies point out in any other case.
The Leon County College Board fiercely debated whether or not to sue Constitution Faculties USA for entry to the constructing and its contents, which had been funded with taxpayer {dollars}. However college board members dropped the thought after studying that the constructing had a big lien, the results of how financing was crafted by means of Pink Apple Improvement, the true property arm of Constitution Faculties USA. Hanna was annoyed that for-profit firms benefited from taxpayer {dollars} — however nonetheless owned the property.
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When Renaissance introduced it was closing, a good friend of Martinez’s advised her household apply for vouchers, which coated the total value of attendance for her two sons on the Avant Faculties of Excellence, a non-public Christian college with campuses in Tallahassee and Florida Metropolis.
The college takes vouchers (together with a faculty scholarship) as full fee, though its web site lists tuition and charges at $22,775 per yr. Martinez favored that the varsity is Christian, and small. None of their pals from Renaissance Academy are there. Martinez drives them half-hour every method, daily.
The Tallahassee constructing that homes Avant was beforehand house to a minimum of two constitution faculties. (One lasted a month.) For the reason that campus opened three years in the past, mentioned Donald Ravenell, who co-founded Avant together with his spouse, enrollment has jumped from 55 to 175.
Ravenell, who on a latest weekday wore a purple and blue tie (college colours are purple, white and blue), attributed the varsity’s success to a concentrate on religion (“We discuss God on a regular basis”) and the goal of getting ready every pupil to be “a profitable citizen and individual.”
Like Olson at Hartsfield, he nicely understands this can be a aggressive market. He needs his college to be identified for providing a top quality product, which he underscored by drawing a comparability to fried hen.
“I’ve nothing in opposition to Chester’s Rooster,” mentioned Ravenell, referring to the quick-service chain offered in gasoline stations and relaxation stops. However he expects Avant to achieve for extra: “We need to be Chick-fil-A.”
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, through Sign at CarolineP.83 or on e-mail at preston@hechingerreport.org.
This story about college vouchers was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, impartial information group centered on inequality and innovation in training. Join the Hechinger publication.
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