Sarasota School Board budget projects spike in private school vouchers, enrollment drop

The Sarasota County School Board is poised to approve a budget projecting a decline in district enrollment and a dramatic increase in private school vouchers, new documents show.

The state of Florida projects the use of Sarasota County's Family Empowerment Scholarships, typically called vouchers, to increase from 2,944 in 2023-24 to 4,688 this year — a 59% increase. Meanwhile, enrollment in the district's public schools is projected to decrease slightly, by 334 students compared to last year.

With the decrease in enrollment and the loss of federal COVID-19 funding, Sarasota Schools' budget is projected to be smaller than the previous year, at $1.35 billion compared to $1.5 billion last year.

The FES, or vouchers, are taxpayer-financed stipends for any Florida student to attend the school of their choice outside of the public school system. The Florida Legislature expanded the program in 2023 as Democrats criticized it as a diversion of money from public school districts .

If the 4,688 students projected to use vouchers were enrolled in Sarasota Schools this year, the district would have seen $46.8 million in additional funds, according to the budget per-student allocation calculation.

The board votes on the tentative budget at its meeting Tuesday evening, and will give final approval at a meeting on Sept. 17.

Terry Connor, the district's superintendent, said in an interview with the Herald-Tribune that as more students in Sarasota County take private school vouchers, he reflects on how the district could offer more and advertise itself as the best option for parents.

"It makes me think about how to be more innovative, more creative in our offerings so that we are truly attracting people to want to come to us," he said. "Because ultimately, parents have the right to choose the best educational option for their students."

Connor said that, despite the jump, he doesn't foresee the voucher estimation hitting its projection for future years. And while many equate private school vouchers to money exiting the district, Connor said it wasn't the district's funds to begin with since those students weren't enrolled in public schools.

The superintendent said the funds Sarasota does have are appropriated according to the priorities of the district's strategic plan, such as investing in literacy coaches and interventionists — something he takes pride in. And the district worked throughout the year to brace for the loss of federal COVID-19 dollars, he said.

The strategic plan "drove the decision-making of how the budget was built," Connor said. "In what positions we should staff going into this year, what positions we could afford to reimagine. The budget really does reflect the priorities of the strategic plan, I think, pretty well."

The budget also reflects the loss of some budgeted positions to schools, such as 11 teacher positions at a Title I school like Emma E. Booker Elementary School. Connor said the context behind those numbers is the district scrubbing over school budgets to see where vacant positions can be removed and where teachers could be moved, which happens each summer.

"No teacher has been cut," Connor said. "When you look at class sizes, the number of vacancies at our schools, the determination was 'We can go ahead and pull these positions back because they're not filled anyway.'"

Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at sbwalker@gannett.com .

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota School Board budget projects spike in private school vouchers, enrollment drop