ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Orange County Public Schools is sharing the challenges it faces for the next school year. The district hosted its annual State of the Schools Address on Tuesday morning.
Leaders cited budget cuts and lower enrollment, which Channel 9 has told you about since December, as a few reasons for the changes being made. From school consolidations to budget cuts, OCPS is feeling the financial pinch.
The district said that since the school voucher program became universal, $4 billion of taxpayer money has gone toward home or private education.
The district projects a loss of roughly 3,000 more students next year, which they said will cost them tens of millions of dollars.
The Chair of the OCPS School Board, Teresa Jacobs, said these are factors that simply increasing student enrollment won’t fix.
“That’s not good enough, because we get a certain dollar amount for each student, but if that dollar amount shrinks, having more students, when that dollar amount doesn’t pay for every student,” Jacobs said. “I’m going to say it. It’s alarming, but it’s catastrophic.”
The state denied the district’s request for a 3% budget increase.
With that, leaders said job cuts have been made at the district level. They said healthcare for employees will also have to change. They project a $145 million shortfall for employee healthcare by 2027.
“That’s the challenge,” Jacobs said. “What else can we cut? There’s a point at which you can’t do that without it actually affecting what’s actually happening in our classrooms. I’m very concerned.
Right now, families receiving the school voucher program are getting roughly $8,000 per student. The district is asking the state with that choice to fund public schools equally.
Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
©2026 Cox Media Group
