Orange County schools begin shedding teachers due to decline in student enrollment

More than 800 teachers employed by Orange County Public Schools have received letters from the school district informing them they will not return to their classrooms for the next school year, the district confirmed to Orlando Weekly, due at least in part to a decline in student enrollment.

A spokesperson shared, for comparison, that ahead of the 2024 school year, 960 teachers had similarly received letters informing them their jobs were being cut.

The Orange County Classroom Teachers Association, the local teachers union, blasted the cuts on social media.

“We are now seeing the devastating results of Florida’s deliberate scheme to defund public education,” shared union president Clinton McCracken in a social media post published Monday.

“Last week, many teachers across our district were non-reappointed, and it appears to be due to projected under-enrollment in our public schools — a direct consequence of the state’s reckless expansion of school vouchers.”

Florida’s school voucher system, touted as “school choice,” awards taxpayer funds to parents who want to home-school their child or send their child to a private school, instead of a public, tuition-free school.

Since the passage of reforms to Florida’s school voucher system in 2023, including the removal of voucher income limits, voucher use has spiked 67 percent, the Orlando Sentinel reported earlier this year, with students from wealthy families making up roughly one-quarter of voucher recipients. The change has allowed parents to draw millions of dollars from taxpayer funds.

“Public education is one of the last true promises of opportunity and equality in this country — and it’s being systematically dismantled,” said McCracken, an openly gay union leader and former art teacher who has also spoken against the adoption of anti-LGBTQ policies in schools.

“While private schools using voucher dollars discriminate, hire unqualified staff, raise tuition at will, and operate without real public accountability, public schools are left scraping for resources — and now are losing some of their most dedicated teachers in the process.”

Extra federal funding for public schools allocated during the COVID-19 pandemic is drying up, leaving schools across the U.S. on the edge of a “fiscal cliff,” according to CNBC.

The OCPS spokesperson clarified in a follow-up email to Orlando Weekly that dips in enrollment are just a part of why a teacher’s contract with the school district might not be renewed. Nearly half of the teachers this year who didn’t see their contract renewed this year, for instance, were on temporary contracts covering for a long-term leave of another employee or maternity leave.

But the fact that most teachers are on these annual contracts at all is due to Florida law.

Decades of ‘bad policy’

Under Florida law, public educators are generally employed on annual, year-to-year contracts with school districts. Each year, educators are informed by the district whether their job is being cut. This has been the norm for Florida teachers since 2011, when then-Gov. Rick Scott signed a law, dubbed the Student Success Act, eliminating multi-year renewable contracts.

“Our hope is to find positions for all our teachers within OCPS,” Scott Howat, director of communications for OCPS, told Orlando Weekly in a statement. District staff, he added, will be holding virtual transfer fairs to “provide an avenue” for teachers to find another position for the next school year. “We welcome assistance from all stakeholders to get the word out to our employees.”

Orange County Public Schools is the eighth-largest school district in the United States, with 210 schools and more than 200,000 students, according to the OCPS website.

Staffing in schools is based on the school district’s budget, according to OCPS, which is itself dependent on student enrollment. According to a recent memo sent to OCPS employees, the district’s schools are projected to lose 3,130 students for the 2025-26 school year. This is expected to result in a $27.8 million decrease in funding.

A new annual report from the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the U.S., shows that Florida ranks 39th nationwide in per-student spending, allocating $13,584 per student, as of the last school year. Florida also ranks near dead-last in average teacher pay, ranking 50th out of all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. (No. 51, Mississippi, has the nation’s lowest average pay rate for teachers.)

“Florida’s lawmakers say they want to lead in public education, but you can’t lead from 50th place,” said Andrew Spar, president of NEA’s state affiliate, the Florida Education Association. “The Governor’s original budget proposal keeps public schools at the bottom of the priority list by keeping per student spending flat, failing to deliver meaningful raises for teachers, and significantly decreasing funding for special needs students,” Spar continued.

“The House and Senate proposed budgets follow suit, proposing deep cuts to college and career readiness programs that are critical to Florida’s future workforce and minimal increases to teacher salaries.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ budget proposal, released earlier this year, would increase per-student spending by $222 for the next school year, the Florida Phoenix reported. Still, proposals from the Florida House and Senate, in contrast, look to allocate less. Adjusting for inflation, the FEA said in a recent statement that per-student spending even under DeSantis’ proposal would still be hundreds of dollars less than it was just a few years ago. The union called on DeSantis’ office to increase per-student spending in his budget by $1,000 per student.

“Decades of bad policy have caused Florida’s students to have to deal with continued teacher and staff shortages, declining SAT scores and falling NAEP scores,” the FEA said in a statement. “Meanwhile, while inflation rises, teachers in Florida are ranked No. 50 in the nation for average teacher salary, and education staff professionals often cannot afford to live where they work.”

Florida teachers’ unions have for years pointed out ongoing teacher shortages in schools, with educators also speaking out about large class sizes, student behavioral problems, and efforts by the state to censor what they can discuss and teach in classrooms.

Recruiting students back to the classroom

The Orange County school board last week voted in favor of hiring a consultant to lure students back into the public school system, according to an OCPS news release. The plan is to pay consultants, employed through a third-party organization, nearly $1,000 for every student they recruit.

Under the agreement reached with Caissa Public Strategy LLC, a Tennessee-based public relations firm, OCPS will receive approximately $8,950 in state funding for each student who re-enrolls and attends a district-operated school for at least 30 days. The firm will be paid $935 per student who returns and meets that 30-day attendance threshold. OCPS pointed out this would result in a net gain of $8,015 per student for the district.

“This initiative provides a new avenue for OCPS to promote its schools and highlight the strong educational opportunities available to students and families who live in Orange County and are not enrolled in OCPS,” Dr. Maria Vazquez, the county’s school superintendent, said in a statement.

If 1,000 students are re-enrolled, OCPS would receive about $8 million in net revenue, with Caissa Public Strategy receiving $935,000 from OCPS in compensation.

This post has been updated to add additional clarifying information from OCPS on teachers who were given non-reappointment letters this year.

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This article appears in May 7-13, 2025.