Editor's Note: This story originally ran on Florida Politics.

The dream, the goal, the answer to many prayers is a three-story building that houses seven classrooms, a chemistry lab, a library – and since school resumed after the Christmas break, 54 students in grades nine through 11.

Welcome to Basilica High School, which sits on the campus of The Basilica School of Saint Mary Star of the Sea, Key West’s lone Catholic school and the only Catholic high school in Monroe County.

The school, which for decades served only PK3-8 students, will be PK3-12 when the first senior class is added during the 2025-26 school year.

“It’s been three years of fear, hope, prayers, and a lot of hard work to get here, and it's amazing now to have the students in the classrooms in the building. It feels like we have a home,” said Angela Wallace, the school’s Advancement Director.

Florida’s education choice scholarship programs were instrumental in making it possible, an achievement worth celebrating during National School Choice Week and Catholic Schools Week, which run concurrently Jan. 26 to Feb. 1.

Key West had a Catholic secondary school for 100 years until Mary Immaculate High School closed in 1986 because of declining enrollment. That meant the nearest Catholic high schools were in Dade County, with the closest being Archbishop Coleman Carroll High School, a mere 145 miles from Key West.

That left few options for parents whose children graduated The Basilica School of Saint Mary Star of the Sea after the eighth grade: send them to Key West High School or one of Key West’s two charter schools or move closer to a Catholic school.

The hope of another Catholic high school always lived among school administrators and parents, and beginning last decade, several factors combined to turn that hope into reality.

First, Catholic school enrollment in Florida continued its steady incline with a 4.4% growth of preK-12 students between 2013-2023. After a COVID-related drop to 77,689 students in 2021, enrollment rebounded to 89,267 students in 2023. Enrollment has continued to rise, from 90,870 in the 2023-24 school year to 93,455 this academic year – a healthy 2.8% year-over-year increase.

Enrollment doubled at The Basilica School of Saint Mary Star of the Sea between 2013 and 2019.

Second, HB1 became law in 2023, which expanded the state’s education choice scholarship programs, making them available to all K-12 students in Florida.

“(HB1 has) been an incredible blessing,” Wallace said. “So much of our operational and economic vitality is because of the scholarship program.”

There are 524 students enrolled at The Basilica School of Saint Mary Star of the Sea during this school year, 450 attending with the help of a scholarship managed by Step Up For Students: the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options, which average $8,000 per student, or the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities, which averages $10,000 per student.

The programs have been a boon to families seeking more options in their children’s education, with participation this year passing the 500,000 students milestone for the first time. They also have helped Catholic schools in Florida grow, bucking the national trend of declining enrollments. Last year, 56,192 students used scholarships to attend Catholic schools. This year, that number has jumped to 72,851.

Three years ago, The Basilica School of Saint Mary Star of the Sea conducted a feasibility study to see if adding a high school would work. The results led to a pilot program during the 2021-22 school year when 13 students enrolled in the ninth grade.

“Those students took an enormous risk,” Wallace said. “We basically said we have been approved to offer high school classes for this year, and possibly this year only if we can’t get all the numbers to work. You may be transferring elsewhere for your sophomore year.

“They took the leap, and we have been able to continue.”

A 10^th grade was added the following year, which increased the high school’s enrollment to 33. That increased to 54 this year with the three grades. The hope is to have 80 students enrolled in the four grades during the 2025-26 school year.

Until January, those students were “nomads,” according to The Basilica School of Saint Mary Star of the Sea President Robert Wright, as they used classrooms on the elementary school campus. Now they have a home, and Wright said the excitement permeates the entire campus.

“It is one of the greatest blessings in my life to witness the seeds of faith and virtue that have been planted and nurtured in our students during the elementary and middle school years come to fruition as they transition to adulthood,” he said.

The new school building had been an auditorium that was used as a gymnastics studio. It is called The Howley Family Building after Nick and Lorie Howley, who helped fund its transformation.

Riella Sims, whose daughter Kallisto is one of the original 13 ninth-graders, was among the parents lobbying for a high school as their children ascended elementary and middle school.

“I felt it was in Kallisto’s best interest for her to continue on in the Basilica High School, as I believe The Basilica provides a more well-rounded education for the well-being of all the children attending,” she said. “They become more responsive to their community’s needs and others around them.”

Kallisto said she is “proud” to be a member of the first graduating class. She said their legacy will be built on “faith, understanding, a sense of adventure, and the courage to take on challenges,” all the qualities needed to enroll in a high school that might not exist after one year.

“We all feel an immense sense of pride not just in ourselves, but also in our extraordinary teachers, who have worked tirelessly to provide us with an excellent education, from late nights to helping us around the clock with any questions we have,” she said. “This moment is as much a celebration of their dedication as it is of our achievements.”

Hadley Bardoni, a 10^th-grader, enrolled at Basilica High School in the ninth grade after visiting all four secondary school options for Key West students.

“Basilica just clicked with us and our daughter, and it's been the best choice that we could have made for her,” said Jennifer Bardoni, Hadley’s mom.

Though not Catholic, Jennifer and her husband Damian wanted a faith-based education for Hadley and her sister Ansley, who is in the eighth grade. It’s a small school with a favorable teacher-to-student ratio and a curriculum based on moral values.

“The students are treated as young adults,” Jennifer said. “It’s a very welcoming, loving community that nurtures education and gives our kids the right values.”

That was the motivation for the push to add a high school. The values taught in grades one through eight will continue through grade 12.

“It’s such a crucial time in their development, that transition from adolescence to being young adults,” Wallace said. “They're able to continue that in an environment where they feel very safe. They know the teachers and they're with the friends and families that they've grown up with.”

 

Florida Catholic schools are thriving, and the latest enrollment numbers prove it. Across the state, enrollment rose from 90,870 in the 2023-24 school year to 93,455 – a 2.8% year-over-year increase.

Driving much of this growth is the use of private school scholarships, which rose by 27% this year. Programs like the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options and the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship provide families with about $8,000 per student to pay for private school, making Catholic education more accessible than ever.  The news comes just as Catholic schools across the United States are celebrating Catholic Schools Week simultaneously with National School Choice Week, which runs from Jan. 26 through Feb. 1.

“(Scholarship) programs are giving more working-class and middle-class Florida families the ability to choose Catholic schools — and more of them are doing just that,” said Bishop Gerald Barbarito of the Diocese of Palm Beach, which has 20 schools in five counties.

National state-by-state figures are not expected to be released until March, but last year’s report offered encouraging news, with Catholic school enrollment in PreK-12 holding steady. In 2023-24, 1,693,327 students were enrolled in Catholic schools across the United States, virtually the same number as the prior year. (Officially, the 2022-23 number was 1,693,493.) In Florida, enrollment climbed to 90,785, up 5.2% from the prior year.

The 2023 passage of House Bill 1, which made every family in Florida eligible for a scholarship, has been a game changer for Catholic schools. Last year, 56,192 students used scholarships to attend Catholic schools. This year, that number has jumped to 72,851. In the Archdiocese of Miami, the number of families using scholarships increased by 45%.

However, Florida was an outlier when it came to Catholic school enrollment growth a decade before Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1 into law.

Between 2013 and 2023, Florida was the only state in America in the Top 10 for Catholic school enrollment that did not see declines in enrollment. While other states saw declines during that span, Florida experienced 4.4% growth, which was credited to the Sunshine State’s already robust school choice scholarship program. The positive trend lines in Florida were the subject of a special report: “Why Catholic schools in Florida are growing: 5 things to know.”

“Over the past few years, we have made an intentional effort to educate families about these programs and encourage them to apply,” said Jim Rigg, archdiocese secretary of education and superintendent. “At this point, over half of our schools are full with a waiting list, so we decided to work closely with families enrolled or interested in schools that were not full.” He feels that their measured and strategic approach helped families understand and apply for the scholarship.

This remarkable growth is not limited to a single region. Schools within the Diocese of Venice in southwest Florida saw the most growth, with a 4.9% increase. Superintendent Father John Belmonte attributes this success to strategic goals set for each school.

“The most important thing that we do is communicate with families and invite them to attend our schools. We do this by sending out 1 million emails and text messages to families across the diocese every year,” he said. Schools are also innovatively addressing capacity challenges in high-demand areas by maximizing classroom space and adopting creative scheduling.

Catholic schools in Florida are also making strides in serving students with unique abilities, as enrollment for these programs increased by 36%. Schools like Holy Family Catholic school in Jacksonville are pioneering innovative ways to serve their students, such as individualized, small-group-focused learning. Similarly, schools like Bishop Larkin Catholic School in the Tampa Bay area have implemented initiatives like Morning Star programs, which provide a low student-to-teacher ratio, tailored curriculum, and dedicated classrooms to help students with learning and developmental challenges succeed academically, socially, and spiritually. Thanks to the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Unique Abilities, families in this program receive scholarship dollars to make specialized education more accessible.

The continued growth has paved the way for exciting school expansions and new facilities. In December, The Basilica School of Saint Mary Star of the Sea in the Florida Keys celebrated the ribbon-cutting of its new high school building. Meanwhile, Donahue Catholic Academy in rural southwest Florida is set to expand with modular classrooms to accommodate 200 students on a wait list. Rigg expressed optimism about the future.

"We are continuing conversations about how to expand the growth of Catholic education in Florida,” he said.

CLEARWATER, Fla. – The orphans in a tiny town in Tanzania left the biggest impression on Sarah Williams.

They were so cute and kind and happy.

And curious.

The children were fascinated with Sarah’s long hair. It’s something rarely seen in that part of the world, where water is so scarce the locals shave their heads so as not to waste the precious resource on something as ordinary as washing their hair.

Sarah let the kids run their fingers through her locks. She showed them how to make a ponytail and how to braid it.

“They were so happy,” Sarah said. “They don’t have much, but they have each other. All they wanted was to hold our hands and play with us.”

Sarah, five of her classmates from Clearwater Central Catholic High School (CCC) and two chaperones from the school spent 10 days last June in Tanzania as representatives of Water 4 Mercy, a nonprofit that provides water and food and hope to remote villages in Africa.

Water 4 Mercy was started in 2018 by Nermine Khouzam Rubin, whose daughter, Samantha, is a graduate of CCC.

Sarah is a junior who attends the private Catholic school on a Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options (FES-EO). The scholarship is managed by Step Up For Students.

She is a member of CCC’s Water 4 Mercy service chapter, the largest service chapter in the school. It began in 2021 and has raised $36,000 through fundraisers. This was the first time CCC students traveled to Africa.

“It’s life-changing,” said Beth Lani, CCC’s director of advancement and moderator of the school’s Water 4 Mercy chapter.

The 16-page itinerary that Sarah and her classmates received said it would be a “fun and meaningful journey” and a “life changing adventure.”

It was for Sarah and for Corey Vohra, a senior who also made the trip.

They visited schools, an orphanage and convent, and several rural villages. They also attended Mass in Swahili and went on a safari.

“I went there with an open mind,” Corey said. “I wanted to see where the journey would take us.”

They met villagers barely scraping by without one of life’s biggest necessities – clean water – yet were also some of the happiest people they’ve ever met.

They saw smiling faces everywhere they went. Children lined up and waved when the traveling party drove by.

“It showed me a different perspective on my life,” Corey said. “I feel like coming out of that trip, I'm very grateful for everything I have and all the privileges I have in life.”

When Sarah returned home, she researched the type of social work needed in countries like Tanzania.

“It impacted me so much I want to do something about it,” she said. “I’m looking at majors for college, and I’d like to major in social work so I can go back and work with the orphanage.”

Sarah plans to attend the University of Tampa, where she can continue to play volleyball and major in social work.

“Before this trip I wanted to major in interior design,” she said, “so this is something totally different. I love being around children. I babysit for a ton of different families. I always had a connection with children, so I think this is something that I want to stick with.”

Corey, who also attends CCC on an FES-EO scholarship, plans to attend college in south Florida and major in international affairs.

“This trip helped me figure out what I want to do,” he said. “Maybe I can be part of the United Nations and do something to help make a difference there.”

The trip included visits to places like Mabalangu Village, a community of 2,200 that recently gained access to clean water for the first time thanks in part to the efforts of CCC’s Water 4 Mercy service chapter.

And to villages that are in the process of gaining access to clean water. It was those visits that left a lasting impact. The students watched villagers gather water from muddy water holes also used by animals. You can imagine what is mixed in with the mud.

“It was crazy,” Corey said. “And then you come home, and you can take like 10 steps and get water from your fridge.”

The villages consist mostly of women and children, because the men travel to other parts of the country for work. Those women and children carry the water back to their homes in containers they balance on their heads.

“I saw a big difference between the village with no water and the village with water,” Sarah said. “Everybody was happier. They looked cleaner.”

Lani was one of the chaperones. This was her second trip to Tanzania with Water 4 Mercy. Seeing the impact the school is making in Tanzania was “very inspiring,” she said.

She graduated from Cleveland State University with a degree in anthropology and said she would have jumped at the chance to go on a trip like this at that time had one been available.

“I know these kids, they're bright kids, and I figured maybe it wouldn’t pivot their career choice, but maybe give them a different perspective, and it might color what they do in the future,” she said. “But to hear them say it actually is guiding their career choice, at least at this point in their lives, is wonderful. I’m thankful that I could share that opportunity with them.”

 

 

TAMPA – The night ended with a set of Latin music, one of Victor Peña’s favorites, and everyone inside the theater on the campus of Jesuit High School was standing and moving something – arms, legs, hips.

It was the final set of a two-hour concert to raise money for a scholarship to honor Victor, Jesuit Class of 2016, who died along with a close friend, Sean Shearman, in a car accident in Tallahassee in October 2020.

Carlos Lamoutte was the bandleader and ringleader. He’s Jesuit Class of ’25. He attends the private, all-male, Catholic high school in Tampa with the help of Florida’s Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options (FES-EO), managed by Step Up For Students.

His family and the Peña family are close. They attend the same Catholic church near their homes – the Peñas in Brandon and the Lamouttes in Plant City. The children attended the same Catholic elementary school. They’ve vacationed together. Spent days together at the beach.

The scholarship to honor Victor’s memory was Carlos’ idea.

“I can’t imagine who I would be without Jesuit,” Carlos said. “They truly are shaping me into becoming the man I am, and the same exact experience I’m having, I want for others to have, and I know how expensive it is for some families to send their sons here.”

The Victor Pena ’16 Benefit Concert raised $18,000, which will go toward the Victor Pena '16 Annual Financial Aid Scholarship to Jesuit.

“As Victor’s parents, we are super pleased at this beautiful gesture of the school and Carlito, because if it wasn't for his spark, and his idea and his organizing, pushing and making the case to school administration officials, it never would have happened,” Victor Peña Sr., said. “He was the linchpin.”

Carlos, 17, is a talented musician who plays the guitar and piano. He’s also the lead singer of his rock band, The Jesuit Boys, which he formed two years ago with some classmates. They play at Catholic events around Tampa.

Victor was a close friend of Caroline Lamoutte, Carlos’ older sister who is now in medical school at the University of Florida. Carlos saw Victor as an older brother.

“He had a huge, positive impact on my life,” Carlos said. “There is this heaviness in my heart.”

Since Victor’s passing, Carlos had wanted to honor him in some way. It was this past December while having dinner with his parents – Ana and Carlos – that Ana mentioned his music.

“My Mom said, ‘You have this talent, and the Lord has asked you to use this gift for something great because this gift wasn't given to you just to have fun. It is to make an impact on the world,’ ” Carlos said. “So, I thought, ‘Well, shoot. I've always wanted to do something for Victor. This could be it. I can raise money in his name.’ ”

“The light bulb went on,” Ana said, “and from that point on, he was nonstop.”

The Rev. Richard C. Hermes, S.J., president of Jesuit High, didn’t hesitate to say yes when Carlos approached him with the idea of a benefit concert. With guidance from Nick Suszynski, Jesuit’s director of development, and help from other members of the Jesuit staff and a few alumni, Carlos put together a silent auction, food, and musicians for the event.

The crowd of 200 that gathered at the Antinori Center for the Arts included members of the Peña family from Georgia and Miami and former classmates of Victor’s from as far back as grade school. Victor’s brother, Gabriel (Jesuit class of ’17), was the emcee. His sister, Angie, read a poem.

At one point, Lidia Peña, Victor’s mom, joined the band on stage and played a duet of several Cuban dances on the piano with her sister, Lisette Garcia.

“It was right,” Ana said. “It was music. It was dancing. It was food. It was Victor.”

“Victor was definitely there,” said his father. “Victor was a fun-loving guy. He just loved to have fun. We believe in an afterlife, so we really feel that he was a happy camper that night.”

Victor’s family and friends remember him for his larger-than-life personality, his levelheadedness, his strong Catholic faith, his smarts, his ability to bring friends and family together, and his high energy, which everyone agrees was contagious.

Family and friends say the same thing about Carlos.

“I see Victor every time I interact with Carlito,” Victor Sr. said.

Carlos is an honor roll student who is interested in a music career. He’d like to attend Vanderbilt University in Nashville and major in finance or economics with a double major in music business.

Though he is a natural at leading a band on stage and interacting with the audience, organizing the benefit concert has led him to think his future might be on that side of the business -- marketing and promotion. Also, working with Suszynski on the concert provided an introduction to the world of fundraising.

“Maybe creating a nonprofit would be something that I'd like to do,” Carlos said. “This has been a super cool experience in that perspective, as well.”

And there is always the medical profession. His other sister, Lauren, is in dental school at the University of Florida.

“Having the (FES-EO) scholarship is a huge blessing,” Carlos said. “With a sister in medical school, a sister in dental school, and me at a private school, my parents didn’t know how they were going to make ends meet. The scholarship came along and it has helped. It’s been such a blessing in my own life.”

Carlos plans to visit Vanderbilt this summer during a trip to Nashville. He knows his senior year will pass quickly, and it will include the big decision of where to go to college and what to study.

He also knows his senior year will include another Victor Pena ’16 Benefit Concert to raise more money for the scholarship fund. In fact, it’s Carlos’ plan that the concert became a yearly staple on the Jesuit social scene, whether he’s involved or not.

“It felt amazing to know that we were all in it together,” Carlos said. “The school wanted to help. The people in the audience wanted to help. And we were making a huge impact to honor Victor and for all these future kids who are going to come to Jesuit in need of financial aid.”

 

JACKSONVILLE, Florida - Math class at Holy Family Catholic School begins with two polls, one in which students share their snack preferences and the other in which they name their favorite animals. 

Second-grade teacher Alicia Revels divides the room into two groups of students and assigns each a survey to give the class.  The two groups count the votes. 

Revels writes the results on the whiteboard. In the snack poll, cookies edged out popcorn six to five, while only one student chose chips. In the animal group, tigers received the most love with six votes. Monkeys got four, while two students preferred elephants. 

Revels’ goal when she designed the lesson: teach students how to display and interpret data. “I love it when students can have input when it comes to data, so it makes it more relevant to them,” she said. 

After the fun, Revels asks the students to design a bar graph for their poll results and create related equations.  

As the students begin work, three girls who were in the animals group break away and head to a small table at the right side of the classroom. Amy Galloway hands each student two worksheets and connecting blocks in red, blue and yellow.  

“What do you put first in a bar graph?” Galloway asks. After creating the graph with the blocks, they draw and color it with markers on a graph sheet. They then fill in the numbers 0 through 10 in the left column and the names of each animal in the columns along the bottom row. 

Though the casual observer might not notice, the three students are receiving stealth tutoring. It’s one example of Holy Family’s Differentiation, Enrichment and Needed Support or D.E.N.S. program in action.  

It's also another example of how Florida Catholic schools are increasingly trying new approaches to better meet the needs of more diverse students and fuel their growth in the Sunshine State. 

“D.E.N.S started as a way to give teachers additional support and create smaller groups in the class to meet student needs,” explained assistant principal Amanda Robison.  

The program also includes enrichment for students identified as high achievers to dig deep into non-academic subjects, including religious education. Down the hall from Revels’ class, a small group of third graders in the enrichment program makes small tombs with paper plates and pebbles to expand the lessons taught during the Christian holy week. About 30 to 40 students participate in the enrichment component. A third part of the program, led by the school guidance counselor, offers help dealing with life events and is open to all the K-8 school’s 408 students. 

Robison, who joined the staff in August as part of a new administrative team, worked to revitalize the program, which had been scaled back during the pandemic. 

Her background in special education and educational leadership helped her transform the program to zero in on specific learning needs and support students who needed targeted help. 

The staff started analyzing test scores to see which students were below grade level in certain areas, for example, phonics or math. 

The students take the Renaissance Star reading and math assessment for progress monitoring quarterly throughout the school year. This is used for determining which students may need intervention or enrichment. Educators use the results to determine which students have mastered a specific skill on the Florida math standards, such as "Add or subtract multi-digit numbers including using a standard algorithm with procedural fluency."  

Those who have fallen behind are assigned to D.E.N.S. for extra help to get them back on track in those specific areas. Students who are in D.E.N.S. take the assessments every six to eight weeks to measure progress and determine whether intervention is still necessary. 

The school also uses iXL, a website that delivers personalized learning and diagnostic tests, to verify Star scores and help ensure students get the intervention that best meets their needs.  Teachers also use iXL lessons as practice exercises following an in-class lesson. 

One advantage of D.E.N.S. is that it infuses differentiated support and enrichment into the school day, so families’ before or after-school schedules are not disrupted. The learning support teachers “push in” to the regular classroom and work with the smaller group at the same time their classmates are learning the same lesson. It also makes receiving extra support seem routine and discourages labeling.  

Sessions last for six to eight weeks, and students leave D.E.N.S. when the data show they have mastered the targeted skills. For those who require additional help, temporary pullout programs and one-on-one instruction are also provided.  

 “It’s really beautiful because the students aren’t having to live in this intervention world,” Robison said. “They are visiting it.” 

School data shows the program is working. Of those receiving help in reading, 93% have made progress, and 85% percent getting help have progressed in math. Robison said the program had delivered 100 services in the prior week, though not necessarily to 100 students as some receive multiple services.  

The program also benefits more than just those students receiving help by allowing teachers to instruct a diverse group of students while allowing those who don’t need extra support to move forward. 

“When my team goes in and works with this targeted group, it gives the teachers in the class the ability to really focus on what the other students need,” Robison said. “It’s really meant to keep the pace of the class instruction continuous and high-achieving and make sure education is getting scaffolded along the way to ensure nobody is left behind.” 

After the three D.E.N.S. students finish their math graphs, they grab their electronic tablets and seamlessly rejoin the rest of the class, where all the students are taking their diagnostic tests to measure their skills. An algorithm targets areas are each student needs more practice. It also acts as a D.E.N.S. screener. If some areas stand out as off track, teachers can offer extra practice and do further testing to see if they could benefit from D.E.N.S. 

“We can swoop in,” Robison said. “It’s designed in a way to take the stress off the teachers and not have them have to differentiate among several grade levels in their instruction.”  

Catholic school enrollment in Florida grew more in the past year than in the previous 10 years combined, while Catholic school enrollment nationally held steady, according to the latest figures from the National Catholic Educational Association.

The longer-term trend lines now show Florida Catholic school enrollment up 9% over the past decade, while it’s down 14% nationally.

In light of the new data, we thought it appropriate to issue this brief update to our paper from August.

“Why Catholic Schools In Florida Are Growing: 5 Things To Know” took a closer look at Florida's upward trends and the leading factors behind them.

Our new brief is meant to supplement that paper. We updated a handful of key charts and graphs using new data from the NCEA and the Florida Catholic Conference, including a year-by-year breakdown of Catholic school enrollment for all 50 states.

We also added a couple of new charts. One highlights the number of students using special needs scholarships in Florida Catholic schools. The other does the same for non-Catholic students. Both are on the rise.

As with the paper, we hope our brief can inspire and inform, and perhaps point to lessons from Florida that might be especially useful to Catholic education supporters in states with new choice programs. Challenges remain, but now the wind is at your back.

Editor's note: Some of the figures in Appendix A in the original update brief were incorrect. The correct version here was put in its place on May 9, 2024.

Editor's note: This story is published in celebration of National Catholic Schools Week, which runs from Jan. 28-Feb. 3.

Visit Guardian Angels Catholic School in Clearwater, and you’ll feel a deep sense of community as soon as you pull up to the entrance. School leaders stand at the curb, waving at parents and greeting each student as they leave their cars. The day starts with a student-run television news show, including announcements about frequent evening social events. Principal Mary Stalzer strolls through each room to ensure everything is running smoothly. 

By mid-morning, the youngest students are running around on the playground. Middle schoolers work in science labs. In another room, students read stories they have written or edit a classmate’s work. Outside, students tend vegetable gardens that are part of the school’s fully certified STREAM program. (STREAM stands for Science, Religion, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math and is the Catholic school version of a STEAM program.) Teachers link the gardening projects to Jesus’ parable about what can be achieved by having faith the size of a tiny mustard seed. 

Where Catholic schools are often tied to a single church, with which they often share a location, Guardian Angels is an inter-parish school, which means it has no specific church. Instead, support is spread across four local parishes. This may help explain why the school's leaders have made building community a priority. 

The tree-shrouded campus sits tucked away in a neighborhood of modest homes and apartment complexes, not visible from major highways. 

“We are the hidden gem of northern Pinellas County,” said Stalzer, whose career with Catholic schools has spanned a quarter century.

 

Over the years, she has taught elementary school, worked in the library, and served as assistant principal before becoming head of the school. “We are warm and welcoming. We know our students; we know their parents and their grandparents.”  

This year, more people have discovered the sparkle of Guardian Angels, where enrollment spiked this school year by 19% after several years of decline due to the pandemic and other nearby schools.  

Stalzer attributed the substantial increase to several factors, including a grassroots marketing campaign that included in-person and online meetings, letters, social media posts, and word-of-mouth. However, the primary reason she cited and other school leaders gave for their growth was the Florida Legislature’s passage of House Bill 1, the largest expansion of school choice in United States history.  

While this year’s growth at Guardian Angels is sure to turn heads, it’s part of a much broader statewide trend. Recent data from the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops show Catholic school enrollment grew by 4% across the Sunshine State in the 2023-24 school year. That increase is on top of the 4% growth seen over the past decade highlighted in a special report by Step Up For Students. 

Stalzer and the other Catholic school leaders across the state made every effort to make existing and new families aware of the new law, which extended scholarship eligibility to all Florida students regardless of their family’s income. 

“People found it hard to believe that they didn’t have to qualify for it financially,” Stalzer said. “I have heard some families say it’s an answer to their prayers.”  

Chris Pastura, superintendent of schools for the Diocese of St. Petersburg, where Guardian Angels is located, said the law helped many families who otherwise would not have been able to afford Catholic schools. The 34 elementary and secondary schools in the diocese, which cover five counties in the greater Tampa Bay area, reported a year-over-year growth rate of 3.8% 

“What I found was an immense sense of gratitude from a lot of middle-class families,” Pastura said. Those families might be getting by, he said, but make financial sacrifices to provide their kids with a Catholic education.  

“This is a great example of a program helping them at the bottom line,” he said. 

With its current enrollment at 191, Guardian Angels still has plenty of room before it reaches what Stalzer called a “comfortable” count of 350 students. Other schools across the state are hitting their maximum capacity, which they attribute to Florida’s rising population and the availability of state school choice scholarships. This year, 78% percent of Florida Catholic school students received them. 

“Catholic school enrollment continues to soar in the state of Florida,”’ said Deacon Scott Conway, superintendent of schools for the Diocese of St. Augustine, which reported 4% year over year growth across its 29 schools in 17 northeast Florida counties.  

“One of our biggest struggles is not having enough seats for students, which causes us to have to turn many students and families away,” he said. “We are so blessed here in Florida that our legislature has recognized the importance of empowering school choice for families. For most people, there is no choice without the scholarship program.” 

One of those schools is Holy Family Catholic in Jacksonville, which serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade. The school recently ramped up its Wildcat D.E.N.S. program to provide personalized tutoring for students struggling in key academic areas and enrichment for students identified as gifted. 

This year, for the first time, the school had to start a waitlist for students in kindergarten through fourth grade, assistant principal Amanda Robison said. 

Florida’s largest Catholic school region also reported growth of about 4% this year, continuing a trend that began four years ago.  

“Enrollment is the largest it has been in over 10 years,” said Jim Rigg, who oversees 64 schools as superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Miami, which includes Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties. “Over 50 percent of our schools are filled with waiting lists, and nearly all of the remaining schools are growing.” 

Rigg cited the August re-opening of St. Malachy Elementary School in Tamarac, which had closed 14 years earlier due to declining enrollment, along with the addition of a high school to an elementary school in Key West as evidence of rising demand. Cristo Rey Miami High School also opened in 2022, the second Florida location for a national network of high schools that specialize in college preparatory academics and on-the-job work experience for students from financially constrained households. 

“Unfortunately, there are now areas of the Archdiocese where we simply do not have open seats in our schools,” he said. 

Rigg added that Archdiocese leaders are in “active conversations” about future openings and reopenings to accommodate the demand, which he attributed to Florida’s robust scholarship programs as well as an influx of families from the northern U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean. 

“It is important that we do our best to meet the strong and growing demand for Catholic education in South Florida,” he said. 

Step onto the campus of Christ the King Catholic School, and you’ll find STEM everywhere. 

 The first graders are raising chickens to provide eggs for the school cafeteria.  The second graders are turning food scraps into compost to nourish the vegetable gardens that the fifth graders are tending. The sixth graders are testing the water quality at nearby Strawberry Creek, which feeds the St. John’s River. Eighth graders produce annual class-wide projects to make the planet a better place, whether that’s creating boat propellers that don’t injure manatees or finding new ways to reduce plastic waste. 

Each day after the final school bell rings, you’ll see students at the school in Jacksonville, Florida, programming LEGO robots, designing rockets, learning about zoo animals and a host of other STEM-related activities. 

In the center of it all is Diana Techentien. She’s the school’s STEM coordinator. The students call her Mrs. Tech.  

Techentien works with the science teachers to develop and execute lessons and projects for the school, which serves 360 students in grades Pre-K through eight. Her work helped Christ the King make the 2021 list of Green Ribbon Schools, a federal designation recognizing schools that emphasize environmental sustainability. It was the only one of 27 schools and the only Florida school on the list. 

This year, the Florida Association of Science Teachers named Techentien one of its four teachers of the year. 

“It was a surprise,” Techentien said. “I was invited to apply, and I kind of did it last minute.” 

Techentien began teaching science a decade ago, but her interest in the subject  goes back longer than that. She studied animal science in college and spent 20 years owning and operating a St. Augustine horse farm. In addition to breeding, raising and training horses, she taught riding lessons. 

When life changes caused her to give up the farm, Techentien began searching for a different path. 

“I always wanted to make a difference and change the world,” she said. “What better way than to teach kids?” 

So, Techentien went back to college and earned an education degree. She joined the faculty as a middle school science teacher at Christ the King. She is now in her third year as the school’s STEM coordinator. In this position, she not only teaches engineering but also mentors her colleagues and helps elementary teachers incorporate science labs into their classrooms. 

The STEM program, which is part of an overall program in Catholic schools called STREAM because it incorporates religion and art, has done more than enhance academics. It, along with state education choice scholarships, helped save the school. 

When Christ the King school opened in 1954, the surrounding neighborhood was solidly middle income. Over time, demographics changed. Lower income families who moved in couldn’t afford tuition and put their kids in district schools. 

“The principal knew we had to do something as the school was on a closure list,” Techentien said. 

After researching options, school leaders decided to focus on STREAM. As a result, Christ the King was the first to receive STREAM accreditation from the Florida Catholic Conference.  

“It’s just expanded over the years to the point of where we are now,” Techentien said. “It’s integrated into every class at our school. Every class participates in a yearlong project.” 

Today, Christ the King isnot only surviving but thriving. And it's part of a statewide success story. Between 2013 and 2023, Florida was the only state in America in the Top 10 for Catholic school enrollment that did not see declines in enrollment. New York saw a 30.7 percent decline over that span; New Jersey, a 33.3 percent decline. Florida experienced 4.4 percent growth.  

The school’s advanced programs have wowed parents who have greater opportunities to choose the best educational fit for their children, thanks to landmark legislation that made all Florida families eligible for K-12 education choice scholarships. (Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, manages most of these scholarships.) 

“You see it during the tours. A lot of times they’re coming from a public school environment and coming here and seeing what these kids do and what they're exposed to, the rigor, they’re amazed,” Techentien said. 

The University of Notre Dame’s Center for STEM Education recently chose Techentien and her science  team to join the 2023 cohort of its STEM Teaching Fellowship Program. 

What’s happening at Christ the King is just one example of all the STREAM innovation happening across the 39 schools in Diocese of St. Augustine, said schools superintendent Deacon Scott Conway. 

 “We are producing students with a strong academic and spiritual foundation to be successful in an ever-changing world,” Conway said. “It takes unique teachers with amazing skills like Diana Techentien, who has gone above and beyond, as Catholic school teachers do. She has personally added so much to the program and excels as one of the best science teachers in the state of Florida.” 

Amid the accolades, Techentien says the simple things still bring the most joy. 

“It’s seeing the expressions on kids’ faces when they do something they didn’t think they could do before,” she said. 

School is back in session for Catholic schools across all seven dioceses in Florida.

This year, each of them is seeing another enrollment increase.

This broad, widespread enrollment growth is part of a longer-term trend that makes Florida stand out on the national landscape.

In a recent report published by Step Up For Students, only 10 states showed growth in Catholic school enrollment over the past decade. Of those 10, Florida is the only state with a significant number of students enrolled in Catholic schools.

These numbers may continue to change as some schools are still enrolling new students, but here is a preliminary look at year-over-year enrollment growth by diocese.

Diocese of Venice – 8%

Diocese of Palm Beach – 6%

Diocese of St. Augustine – 5%

Archdiocese of Miami – 3.5%

Diocese of St. Petersburg – 3.5%

Diocese of Orlando – 3%

Diocese of Pensacola/Tallahassee – 2%

Katie Kervi, Assistant Superintendent for the Diocese of Palm Beach, said that over the last three years enrollment in the diocese’s schools has grown by at least 6%.

“We are excited to see our schools flourishing and look forward to welcoming new students and families into our community,” she said. “Our Catholic schools provide a faith-based education paired with high academic standards.  I believe the consistent increases in enrollment can be attributed to these strong foundations and because all families now have the opportunity to choose the educational environment that is best for their children.”

Legislation that went into effect on July 1 made the state’s Family Empowerment Scholarships available to all students who are eligible for K-12 public education.

Alina Mychka’s daughter was awarded a scholarship for the 2023-24 school year by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.

Her child started the year at Holy Family Catholic School in Jacksonville, and she says she is thankful she can send her child to a safe environment with a rigorous curriculum that reinforces her values.

Mychka immigrated to America from Ukraine eight years ago. She sends any extra dollars her family can spare back to her relatives in their war-ravaged home country.

Without the scholarship, she says, Catholic school would likely not be an option for her family.

 

 

Enrollment in Florida’s Catholic schools, which rebounded slightly last year after a pandemic dip in 2020-21, is now the highest it’s been in more than a decade. Figures released this week by the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops show total enrollment at 88,031, an increase of 4.5% from last year and 3.1% from pre-pandemic numbers.

The total enrollment is now higher than it was in the 2008-09 school year, though less than its peak of 95,000 in 2005-06.

The rise in Catholic school enrollment also paralleled the Legislature’s $200 million expansion of state education choice scholarships. HB 7045 granted scholarship access to tens of thousands more students.

Billed as the largest expansion of education choice in Florida history, the law merged the state’s two scholarship programs for students with unique abilities and combined them with the Family Empowerment Scholarship program approved in 2019. The law also made it easier for families to qualify by removing the requirement that students must spend the prior year in a district school and expanded eligibility to dependents of active-duty members of the U.S. Armed Forces. Lawmakers followed up in 2022 with laws that granted automatic eligibility to dependents of law enforcement officers regardless of income.