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ORLANDO, Fla. - Orange County Public Schools officials delivered a stark assessment of the district's financial outlook, citing declining enrollment and continued budget pressures during a recent State of the Schools presentation.
District leaders said OCPS lost millions in funding during the current fiscal year because of enrollment declines and expects to lose thousands more students next year, resulting in additional funding reductions.
The tone
The backstory:
Orange County Public Schools struggled to maintain a positive tone in its state of the schools presentation.
"I am borderline alarmed at this point. I probably should have been alarmed all along," OCPS President Teresa Jacobs told FOX 35 News.
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The message was this: things are rough right now.
But they’re working hard for students. And they’re still hopeful for the future.
The issues
OCPS says it lost over $23 million in funding just this fiscal year, because of declining enrollment. They’ll lose another 3,000 students and tens of millions in funding next year too.
They already had to consolidate seven schools and cut district staffing levels.
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They’re competing against charter and private schools. Those schools receive public funding, but don’t have to publish performance data, don’t have to employ certified teachers, don’t have to meet state safety and construction standards, and don’t have to pay for transportation to schools the way traditional public schools do.
The push for the future
The District says the hard decisions aren’t over, but they’re working to win students back with micro schools, flexible concepts for the digital arts, and a new gifted high school academy.
What's next:
The November ballot includes a vote for a one mill property tax. That would cover 10% of OCPS’s budget, or about 2,000 out of 14,000 teaching positions.
The District President says that the tax not passing would be catastrophic for schools.
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