There will be fewer teachers in the Palm Beach County School District this fall.
A district spokesman said the district does “anticipate position eliminations and subsequent layoffs” in the aftermath of the 3.5% raise school board members approved for teachers earlier this month.
“Impacted employees are being notified over the coming weeks,” the spokesman said.
The total number and types of positions being reduced “are still being determined as department and school budgets are reduced. Position reductions are expected to continue through October 2026 as budgets are aligned to enrollment.”
School districts across the state, particularly large districts, are seeing huge enrollment drops that are being tied to demographic changes, the immigration climate and the increasing use of taxpayer-paid vouchers for private schools.
Enrollment losses mean funding losses
State funding for public education is tied in part to enrollment. Fewer students means less funding.
Palm Beach County School District officials said it expects to lose $66 million in state funding because an October count showed its enrollment was down by nearly 7,900 charter and non-charter school students from the year before. District officials anticipate this fall’s enrollment to be down by another 2,700 students.
In Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough, Orange, Palm Beach, enrollment was down by a combined 68,000 students from the 2023-24 school year through the 2025-26 school year, according to a summary the Lee County School District prepared for its budget discussions.
Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, Broward and Orange are considering closing or repurposing schools. Lincoln Elementary in Riviera Beach is closing after this school year, though its closure is part of a long-range plan to build a new high school in the city.
Still, Lincoln is only the second district-operated school to close in the past 30 years.
Burke critical of arbiter’s recommendation
District officials had warned that, with declining enrollment and the looming loss of state funding, a raise package bigger than what it offered teachers — a 1.5% pay increase and a one-time bonus of 1.5% — was financially irresponsible and could lead to layoffs.
The Palm Beach County Classroom Teachers Association initially asked for a raise of 5% and declared an impasse in November, sending the issue to an arbiter who recommended a raise of 3.5%.
Superintendent Mike Burke, who was the district’s chief financial officer before getting the top job, criticized the arbiter’s recommendation.
“He failed to provide any specifics or explain what that entails,” Burke told school board members during a May 6 hearing. “I can tell you it will require the elimination of people’s jobs. I have never recommended the elimination of people’s jobs solely for the purpose of raising other people’s salaries.”
Burke pushed back on the notion that the cost of the raise could come from the district’s $160 million in unassigned reserves and that the district was not serious about the potential for layoffs if he raise was bigger than what the district offered. He said the reserves have already been depleted — to $109 million by June. The district’s payroll is $80 million every two weeks, he noted.
“I have heard comments suggesting that the district is bluffing about potential layoffs, and what people need to understand is that we have already reduced staffing levels by over 750 positions to help address that loss of $66 million,” he said. “We are already leveraging vacancies and natural attrition to mitigate the impact.”
Teachers union not certain layoffs are coming
The district’s budget is vast — $5.9 billion in 2026. But much of the money it gets is legally bound to specific purposes.
The state does provide additional money for districts to raise teacher pay, but Burke noted that his district’s share of that money would only be enough to pay for a raise of 0.6%.
In 2018 and again in 2022, Palm Beach County voters approved a property tax increase to help pay for teacher salaries and school safety. A renewal referendum will be on the ballot this fall.
CTA President Gordan Longhofer said there are still too many unknowns to determine if there will be layoffs.
“The district’s budgeting process is not yet complete,” Longhofer said. “The failure of the Florida Legislature to do the one most important job they have, that of writing and passing a state budget, is also impacting the district’s process.”
Longhofer noted that the district has hired more than 1,100 instructional employees in the last two fiscal years.
“Other employee work groups also experience vacancies each year,” he said. “When all of this is considered, I believe we simply don’t know enough to predict any impacts on the district’s workforce at this time. We do, however, have the utmost confidence in our School Board members to dig into these matters carefully as, together, we work to ensure the students of Palm Beach County receive a world-class education.”
Wayne Washington is a journalist covering education and Riviera Beach development for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County schools say layoffs ahead as enrollment falls
Reporting by Wayne Washington, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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