Pasco students who arrived for the first day of class on Aug. 13 were set to sit in more diverse classrooms than ever before, as the district’s population has changed rapidly.
In all likelihood, the county will join its neighbors this year as a majority-minority school system, after growth in the number of Hispanic and Asian students.
Just six years ago, white students made up 60% of the district, according to state data. By last year, that share fell to almost exactly half. In that time, the share of Hispanic students grew from 24% of the district to 28%; Asian students grew from 3% to 5%.
This year’s data won’t come until after official enrollment counts are taken in October. But the trend is clear: Growth in racial and ethnic minorities is happening fast — and more rapidly here than the rest of the state.
Nadia Rodriguez was among the new students. She was a high school freshman who, on Saturday, walked out of a meeting with teachers at Wiregrass Ranch High School in Wesley Chapel grinning.
Her family moved in December from Town ’N Country, and switching school districts was a big factor, said her mother, Summer Rodriguez. She said Pasco teachers have been “very much involved in telling us all the resources, academic clubs and extracurricular activities they have here.”
Nadia said she was excited for band, color guard and drama class.
Wiregrass Ranch High School was nearly 40% white and 29% Hispanic last school year. Asian students made up around 13%, the third-largest group.
The school’s student body was just 6% Asian five years before.
Kelly and David Breeze, parents of Wiregrass Ranch sophomore Olivia Breeze, moved from Hillsborough County to Pasco in 2004.
Kelly, who is Vietnamese, and David, who is white, said their family had always felt welcome.
“We’ve never experienced or seen any kind of discrimination,” David Breeze said.
The United States has become more racially and ethnically diverse, with the nation’s white non-Hispanic population declining consistently since 1970. Across the American South and West, the group is no longer an outright majority of the population, according to recent research from the Pew Research Center.
In schools, the white student population share fell from 51% to 44% from 2012 to 2022, federal data shows.
Racial and ethnic minority students made up two-thirds of Florida’s public school enrollment in the 2025-26 school year, up 3 points since the pandemic, state data shows.
Statewide, 38% of students are Hispanic, 33% are white, 21% are Black and 3% are Asian.
Thirty-one of the state’s 67 districts had majority-minority populations, with Pasco set to join them.
They include Pinellas, which passed the threshold just two years ago, and Hillsborough, long the most diverse district in Tampa Bay.
But Pasco’s demographics are changing more quickly in recent years as the county grows.
“There’s a lot of different ethnicities moving into Pasco. Things are changing, and it’s going to be reflected in our school population,” said David Engel, Pasco County’s director of planning and economic growth. “We’re a melting pot now, and it gives me great personal joy to see that.”
In both the school district and county overall, the white population has seen only a slight dip in absolute terms.
District spokesperson Jessica Meek said students come from a wide range of backgrounds. “We welcome every child who walks through our doors and are committed to ensuring all students have the support, resources, and opportunities they need to succeed.”
Beyond the county’s diversifying population, another factor for the demographic shift of the school system could be that white families are more likely to find other avenues for education.
Kids enrolled in public schools in the district are slightly less likely to be white than those who aren’t. About 64% of county residents ages 5-17 were white, according to a census survey running from 2020 to 2024. That rate is slightly higher than the white share of public school students in those same years.
As of 2021, the demographics of public and private school students in the district were similar, according to data collected by ProPublica.
Nationally, homeschooled children skew whiter than the rest of the school-age population, according to federal data.
The Tampa Bay Times Education Hub reports on Florida’s schools and universities and the students they serve. You can contribute to the hub through our journalism fund by clicking here.
