Miami SEED School slows growth plans

The scene that greets students arriving at SEED Miami.
The scene that greets students arriving at SEED Miami’s campus, housed at Florida Memorial University.

Florida’s first-of-its kind public boarding school has had to slow its growth plans for this school year after state funding didn’t keep up.

The state Board of Education is expected to meet Monday at the SEED School of Miami, housed on the campus of Florida Memorial University. The agenda includes a change to the school’s growth plans, which are part of state contract created under a 2011 pilot program.

During the 2014-15 school year, SEED Miami’s first in operation, the state gave the school $1.4 million, allowing it to serve 60 students. Plans initially called for hiking the funding to about $3 million, allowing the school to double its enrollment this year as it added a class of seventh-graders. The school received $2 million in the current state budget — enough to serve about 78 students.

The extra funding allows the charter boarding school to provide around-the-clock support to students. After completing a regular school day, they return to residence halls where student life coordinators help them with reading, homework and character development.

The state board’s contract documents note that, “in an effort to serve as many students as possible, SEED School has modified its budget by deferring one-time expenditures in order serve up to 95 students” during the 2015-16 school year.” The school’s contract with the state contemplates changes in the number of students it will serve based on the funding it receives.

Demand for spots in the school has outstripped supply. To enroll, students must come from low-income families, be “at risk of academic failure,” and show other “risk factors” associated with struggles in school.


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BY Travis Pillow

Travis Pillow is Director of Thought Leadership at Step Up For Students and editor of NextSteps. He lives in Sanford, Fla. with his wife and two children. A former Tallahassee statehouse reporter, he most recently worked at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research organization at Arizona State University, where he studied community-led learning innovation and school systems' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. He can be reached at tpillow (at) sufs.org.