Dwindling number of students in Florida blamed on costly housing

Tallahassee · Soaring home prices are being blamed for a sudden and surprising decline in the number of students entering Florida public schools, a survey of county school superintendents revealed Thursday.

Half of the 62 school chiefs polled cited the cost of housing as a major reason why students and their families either left their counties or chose not to move there. The findings underscore the emerging view that housing costs are putting the brakes on fast-growing Florida.

For schools, the first signs of the trend surfaced when state analysts wrongly predicted that 48,376 more students would crowd classrooms statewide when doors opened in the fall. Instead, only an extra 477 children showed up.

"We missed it big time," said Wayne Blanton, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association. "Through 2005, we had 10 years in a row of more than 50,000 new students a year. Suddenly, it's stopped." It's the slowest growth rate in students that Florida has seen since the 1982-83 school year.