K-12 Enrollment Down in Florida for the First Time

There has been some rumblings recently about the dearth of expected school increases here in the Sunshine State. Apparently, the state has been attempting to keep this fact in the closet (almost Mark Foley-like!), but after some badgering by some dilligent reporters at the Associated Press, the real figures are coming in.

Bottom line: from October 2005 to October 2006, the state lost more than 2000 students. In the past 50 years, this has never happened.

Note that the state is also attempting to show an actual gain, by comparing the current figures to the end of the school year of 2005 - that's not "apples to apples" because it doesn't take into account the number of dropouts during the year. Nice try, though! I wonder: did the persons trying to push this fictitious "gain" have previous employment at Enron?

"A loss would be historic in a state that has added 34,845 to 65,187 more students in kindergarten through 12th grade annually for the most recent three academic years. A slight gain would still be a dramatic slide.

Either way, the shrinking student enrollment in a state that officially counted 2,641,598 students in mid-October means a $204 million loss to school districts this year, The Associated Press reported Thursday. The implications for the economy may be far greater.

To put it another way, the state fell short of its projections for new students by 48,375.

"A whole school district is not showing up," said Bruce Tonjes, Polk County schools' associate superintendent. "It's scary, isn't it?" "

And we all have to wonder: why did this happen? Could it be.....HIGH housing costs?

"The dramatic drop was evident in August when districts of massive growth, such as Hillsborough County, showed dramatic declines. By early September, soaring housing costs and insurance rates and last year's spate of hurricanes were blamed for keeping working families with children from moving to Florida.

No one has come up with any better reasons as the state tallies numbers from its official October statewide count. The focus is now on just how great the loss is and what it means in dollars.

"No one in a hundred years is ever going to expect this state to be down," said Jim Hamilton, Hillsborough's chief officer for district compliance. "

With this in mind:

Has the word got out about how expensive housing (prices, taxes on those prices, and insurance) is down here?

- Or - (in a derivative of the science fiction that has been quoted by the realtors for the past 5 years):

Is it that everybody still wants to move to Florida, it's just that now they can't sell their previous house?

Also, with less working families moving here, who will they find next to subsidize the current residents of the Sunshine State?


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