In one moment, Pasco schools planning director Chris Williams spoke Tuesday of closing under-enrolled Gulfside Elementary in Holiday and merging it into Paul R. Smith Middle up the street.
Only minutes earlier, Williams discussed the need to build two new campuses — a K-8 and a high school — to alleviate continued crowding in the Wesley Chapel area.
The contrast within the school board workshop presentation highlighted what has become a conundrum for the district as officials explore next steps.
“Other people see us and say, ‘Oh you’re booming in Pasco County,’” board chairperson Colleen Beaudoin said. “But it’s not what people are seeing.”
Enrollment overall in system schools has declined in recent years, even as the number of new housing units has soared. County records show nearly 30,000 units came online in the past three years. Choice is driving much of the shift.
Most of Pasco’s recent student growth has happened in charter and voucher education, a change from just five years ago, district data show. In 2021-22, student numbers in the district jumped by 4,505, compared to 556 receiving vouchers and 808 entering charters.
During the current year, district enrollment dropped by 1,393, while vouchers grew by 1,965 and charters by 941. The state has projected similar movement for the coming academic year.
There is, however, a big but in those trends, Superintendent John Legg observed.
“It’s regional,” Legg said. “We have growth in one part of the county and declining enrollment in another part.”
While the numbers are tanking in west Pasco, and stagnant in previously fast-growing Trinity, Wesley Chapel schools just keep gaining.
Wesley Chapel and Wiregrass Ranch high schools are over-enrolled by more than 1,200 students combined, with the potential for another 2,700 within their boundaries as more housing comes.
That’s after the 2017 opening of Cypress Creek High, which now sits at 96% capacity. Before Wiregrass Ranch opened in 2006, Wesley Chapel High was at 174% capacity, with the next closest high schools also well over 125%.
Elementary and middle schools in the area faced similar crowding then and now.
That trend is protecting Pasco from experiencing freefall enrollment and shuttering multiple schools at once, as other districts including Pinellas, Orange and Broward are confronting.
But Legg said his administration cannot afford to sit back and hope for the best. Because there’s another complicating factor in the numbers.
A decade ago, Pasco had about 700 more kindergartners entering the system than high school seniors departing. That indicated healthy growth of the district, which had been one of the fastest growing in the nation, building 34 new schools between 2000 and 2019.
By contrast, this year the district had 495 fewer kindergartners than seniors. And next year, it expects to enroll about 1,050 fewer kindergartners than seniors.
“We don’t know where the bottom is yet,” Legg said, noting Florida’s record low birth rate.
That means deliberate action.
As west-side elementary enrollment has decreased, with nine currently below 70% capacity, officials slowly have pared them back. Hudson Elementary shuttered in 2020, Mittye P. Locke in 2023, Calusa Elementary in 2025 and Gulfside next year.
Gulf Middle School has shrunk, too, so its current rebuild has 300 fewer seats than the buildings being replaced.
It’s a balancing act, Legg explained, between ensuring a community is well served and the district is efficient with limited funds. Some schools might need to be closed, while others might just need reconfiguration and still others might require added space.
Before making and hard and fast decisions, he said, “We want to see what the numbers look like in September.”
The state’s student projections weren’t accurate this year, and it’s uncertain what the actual counts will show in the fall. After that, officials expect to take a hard look at all the possibilities in a 10-year window and start making recommendations.
“We’re seeing a statewide decline in enrollment,” Legg said. “Pasco is not immune.”
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