Immigration enforcement is leading to a chill in the state's K-12 enrollment.
Florida's Office of Economic and Demographic Research reported that the number of students expected to enroll in the 2025-2026 school year in public and private settings dropped by 46,455 students from their last estimation in April.
The new enrollment estimate is now about 3,188,466 students.
While enrollment overall is still growing, the report states that the lower estimate "signals that the universe of K-12 enrollment is atypically contracting" and that the most likely reason is "related to the chilling effects from recently implemented immigration policies."
Read More: Report sheds light on the lives of Florida immigrants under Trump's second term
An explanation the report pointed to is the decrease of 17,312 students who are learning English as their second language (ESOL).
Similarly, forecasts for early leaning programs and Medicaid have also decreased, the report stated.
Esmeralda Alday is the Senior Director of Partnerships and Impact with ImmSchools, a nonprofit that works with school districts on implementing policies to protect immigrant students and their families.
Alday said she's heard from districts, and families themselves, about their reluctance to send kids to school.
"We started hearing from families saying, 'I'm afraid of leaving the house. I'm afraid of putting them on the school bus,'" said Alday, "The attendance drops, and the enrollment drops are a huge issue."
In Florida, state and county law enforcement are required to assist federal immigration agents through the 287(g) program. The state currently has the most such agreements in the nation.
Alday said her work has been impeded in states that have aligned themselves more firmly with the Trump administration's immigration policies.
Alday said a social worker from a Florida school district reached out to ImmSchools about accommodating immigrant families. However, a plan to educate parents about how to handle immigration enforcement ultimately deteriorated, likely because of fears of backlash from the current administration, she said.
As a result, Alday said she and her group have had to talk directly with families about how to handle interactions with immigration agents.
Many families told Alday that they're laying low. Some have pulled their kids out of school and requested virtual options, Alday said. Others have opted to take their children out of dual language programs or multi-lingual programs in order to reduce the amount of stigma they could face.
"We'll have calls with families and the families will ask, 'What options do we have? I'm not sending my child to school. It's not safe. I don't even feel safe dropping them off at the school, at the school bus, and I actually don't feel comfortable with them even speaking Spanish,'" Alday recounted.
She said parents told her they're "coaching the whole family on speaking English in public places, so that they don't draw attention to themselves."
Alday said this shift is harmful both to students and schools. Not only are kids losing out on education during a formative part of their lives, but districts are losing out on funding that could be dedicated to ESOL students.
A survey from the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (UCLA IDEA) paints a picture on how widespread immigration fears are in U.S. schools.
The survey, which was conducted last summer and published in December, includes responses from more than 600 high school principals and in-depth interviews with 49 of them about the impact of immigration enforcement.
More than half of principals reported that immigrant parents and guardians "left the community during the school year."
In the interview portion of the survey, a Florida principal said that "several immigrant parents have confided, 'My child is afraid to come to school.'”
In addition to pulling their kids out of school, in many cases, parents are also afraid to go to work, resulting in families experiencing food insecurity because of the loss of income, the report mentioned.
Immigration enforcement under the current administration is "unlike anything I've ever seen in my education career," Alday said. "And I've been an educator for over 20 years."
