Photo courtesy of Freepik.com

By David L. Snelling

As student enrollment is on a sharp decline for three South Florida school districts, officials discovered a plan to fill the void but at each other’s expense.

Palm Beach County Public Schools was the first to start recruiting students enrolled at Broward County Public Schools, which retaliated with a plan of its own to lure pupils from neighboring counties including Miami-Dade.

The latter school district joined the fray and launched a campaign as well in an effort to fill empty seats in the classrooms with Broward County kids.

The three school districts say it’s a friendly competition.

Broward County is expecting to lose roughly 9,000 students for the 2026-2027 school year, 8,000 for Miami-Dade and 3,330 for Palm Beach County Public Schools.

With Broward County grappling with student enrollment decline and a shrinking budget, the school district, the sixth largest in the nation, closed six schools this year.

The closures are part of a broader plan to close or consolidate up to 34 schools in the coming years, with the first phase already producing one elementary closure, four elementary-to-K–8 conversions, and one middle-to-6–12 conversion.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the fourth largest district in the nation, closed nine schools this year due to 13 percent of lesser students for the upcoming school year.

Palm Beach County School District officials have not yet announced a fixed number of schools to close in 2026, but they have confirmed that at least one district-operated school, Lincoln Elementary in Riviera Beach, will close after this school year

The student population at the three school districts has been on the decline due to Florida’s voucher program for private school, and parents opting to send their kids to charter schools, which are publicly funded by privately owned and operated.

In addition, undocumented immigrants who face a higher risk of deportation are afraid to send their kids to school, especially since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the President Donald Trump administration to end Temporary Protection Status (TPS).

Palm Beach County Public Schools fired the first salvo by sending postcards to Broward residents in April.

Florida’s Controlled Open Enrollment (CEO) allows students from any district in the state to enroll in public schools if space is available.

The CEO is open to all families, and is in addition to magnet, alternative, and special programs, according to the Florida Department of Education.

For Palm Beach County, undocumented students constituted about 38 percent of the student population in 2024-2025.
“Those numbers have plummeted. Where we were growing by 3,000 to 4,000 students a year, we actually declined this year,” Superintendent Mike Burke said.

Broward County Public Schools is targeting kids in southern Palm Beach and Miami-Dade County.
“Right now we’re not at capacity as a school district, and we need to do our due diligence and compete and market ourselves,” said Broward’s Superintendent Dr. Howard Hepburn.

Hepburn said the school district sent postcards to 24,000 households during the recruitment campaign.
“I love competition, I welcome it, I thrive in a competitive environment, and that’s what we’re doing right now,” Hepburn said.

Outgoing Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Jose Dotre indicated the losing students to private and charter schools, unfortunately launched a civil war between the school districts.

Dotre said the recruitment plan should focus on getting back students whose parents opted for private and charter schools.
“I see it as an approach of bringing, or recruiting, public school students into a public school district, and the effort should be about us gaining the students that we’ve lost to competitive markets,” Dotres said. “What it says is we have to be really competitive and recruit.”

The three school districts will roll out the welcome back mat for students this month and with some good news.

They are “A” school districts.

It’s seven consecutive As for Miami-Dade, three straight for Broward and Palm Beach counties.