School District · #3 in the U.S. by enrollment

Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS)

Countywide · Miami-Dade County, FL · M-DCPS

A countywide system covering every municipality in Miami-Dade, governed by a nine-member elected board. District-run enrollment has fallen four years running while charter enrollment has grown, and in February 2025 the board began repurposing under-filled buildings — the clearest current example of a large district resizing its footprint around a shrinking student body.

Enrollment

313,220

students · 2024-25

−13,059 students(−4.0% vs 2023-24)

Students in district-run schools, counted in the first nine days of the school year. Charter schools authorized by the district are counted separately in the sector breakdown below — adding them brings the county total near 400,000.

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Budget

$7.4B

2025-26

Board-approved budget.

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Outcomes

A (FLDOE district grade, 2024-25 — sixth-plus consecutive A; local reporting says the 2025-26 release marks the seventh)

2024-25 (grade); 2025-26 (enrollment, per WLRN/district)

State accountability ratings are set by each state under its own rules and are not comparable across state lines.

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Governance

9-member School Board elected from single-member districts; 4-year staggered terms

Appointed by the board; Jose L. Dotres (since Feb 14, 2022)

Nonpartisan, by district; 4 of 9 seats up in November 2026

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Where the students arethree sectors, one county

Families in M-DCPS’s territory choose among three systems that answer to different people. Counting them side by side separates a district that is shrinking from a county whose students are simply moving between sectors — the two look identical if you only read the district’s own number.

District-run

Elected school board

392unverified

schools

313,220

students

−13,059 students(−4.0% vs 2023-24)

School count is the district's own published figure; whether it includes board-authorized charters is unconfirmed.

2024-25 · source

Charter

Independent boards, district- or state-authorized

86,545

students

+1,500 students(+1.8% vs 2023-24)

Public schools authorized by the school board but independently operated; their students are not in the district-run count. Prior year derived from the reported net gain of about 1,500 students, so the trend is directional rather than exact. Published school counts range from 54 to 165 depending on the source and are not stated here until verified against the state directory.

2024-25 · source

Private

No public accountability; state-registered only

591

schools

Private schools in Miami-Dade County that filed enrollment data with the state — nearly a fifth of Florida's total. The state publishes the school count but not their combined enrollment, so no trend is drawn.

2023-24 · source

399,765 students across the 2 of 3 sectors that report enrollment — not a county total. Sector figures come from the district and the state, not from the school directory below, which is a researched sample rather than a census.

District figures last verified 2026-09; every number links to its source. How the school system fits Miami-Dade County’s wider capacity lives in the Miami-Dade County capacity assessment.

The Civic Infrastructure Diagnostic Framework’s structural elements — the four cluster labels, the six capacity dimensions, and the binding-constraint framing — are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Anyone may use or adapt them with attribution. Tool implementation and full article text © 2026 JTV Advisory LLC.