Florida private school enrollment keeps growing

Florida’s private schools added more than 5,500 students during the recently completed school year, according to new statistics from the state Department of Education.

The 1.7 percent enrollment increase in 2015 marks the fourth-straight year of small but significant growth for private schools, and the latest sign they are slowly recovering from the Great Recession.

The enrollment increases in recent years have been fueled by the growth of private school choice programs, which have helped thousands of low-income and special needs students attend private schools.

The tax credit and McKay scholarship programs grew by more than 11,000 students combined In the 2014-15 school year, or roughly twice as fast as overall private school enrollment. (Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog and employs the author of this post, helps administer the tax credit program.)

Some 10.7 percent of Florida’s students attend private schools, but the numbers vary from one district to the next. The school districts with the highest levels of private-school enrollment include rural (Bradford and Jefferson), large urban (Miami-Dade and Duval) and midsize (Martin and Escambia) counties. Two rural districts, Calhoun and Liberty Counties, report no private schools or private-school students at all.

While the number of private school students remains below its all-time high, the state’s annual report on private school enrollment also lists a total of 2,424 private schools operating in the state, the highest total on record.