Florida Jewish Day Schools Experiencing Unprecedented Growth, Attracting Major Influx of Families from Other States, According to New Study
Florida’s Jewish schools grew a staggering 58% from 2007 to 2023, with the number of yeshivas and Jewish day schools nearly doubling from 40 to 74, according to a new study conducted jointly by Teach Coalition’s Office of Jewish Education Policy and Research and Step Up for Students.
Much of this growth resulted from expansions to Florida’s state-sponsored education choice scholarship programs – with increasing student enrollments coinciding with the growing number of students receiving state scholarships.
For instance, in 2011-12, only 10 percent of Jewish school students received scholarships, which at the time averaged $3,820 each. By 2022-23, fully 60 percent of Jewish school students received scholarships, with an average value of $8,090 each.
The rate of enrollment growth has sped up over time. Since 2017-18, non-Orthodox schools experienced a 21% enrollment increase since 2017-2018, bucking decades of national downward trends amongst non-Orthodox schools. Since 2021-22, Orthodox schools have grown by almost 15% per year.
“The numbers here are incredible and point to the effect of state scholarship programs on promoting Jewish enrollment across the Orthodox and non-Orthodox spectrum,” said Daniel Mitzner, Director of Government Affairs at Teach Coalition, a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for government funding for nonpublic schools. “Advocating similar scholarship programs in other states should be a top priority for the Jewish community.”
The study concludes that pandemic-induced migration kickstarted the enormous Jewish enrollment growth Orthodox schools saw starting in 2021-22. However, it was the state’s generous scholarship programs that made Florida – as opposed to other states – the destination for Jewish day school families leaving the New York area.
“The tremendous growth of Jewish schools in Florida underscores Florida’s commitment to educational pluralism and reflects the Sunshine State’s longstanding position as the national leader in educational freedom,” said Doug Tuthill, Step Up For Students’ Chief Vision Officer. “The mainstreaming of education choice has brought well-documented benefits to students, families, educators, and communities from all backgrounds and all walks of life. We are so proud to be part of this movement.”
Additionally, the study points to the critical needs of schools as they struggle to meet growing demand. Since 2014-15, an average of 3.75 new Jewish schools have opened every year to keep up with enrollment. However, the vast majority of new schools have stayed small, with under 175 students on average. This highlights many schools’ challenges of finding new campuses for them to grow into. This is due to a combination of rising property prices, restrictive local zoning laws and regulations, and increased competition from non-Jewish nonpublic schools for the limited supply of suitable properties.
“With Florida’s existing Jewish schools at or near full capacity, more effort is needed to source suitably sized school buildings,” said Danny Aqua, Southern States Political Director at Teach Coalition. “Without legislative and regulatory action to reduce the hurdles to opening new schools, the lack of school building space may throttle growth in Florida’s Jewish day schools.”
Teach Florida is now advocating at the state and local level to reduce the barriers to opening and expanding schools.
The full study can be found here.
