District participation in Florida's part-time scholarship marketplace went from roughly one in three to about 75% of 67 districts in twelve months. Texas districts, offered state money for a comparable arrangement, mostly declined. The contrast is the finding.
The limit, before the conclusion. These are participation counts, not revenue. No Florida district has published what it earns from this channel, and a district can be an approved provider with two listed courses and no students. Until district Annual Financial Reports separate the line, “districts are becoming vendors” is a behavioural claim and not a financial one.
Florida's Step Up For Students operates a Contracted Public Schools channel that lets districts and charter schools sell part-time services — courses, tutoring, therapy, assessments — directly to scholarship families, paid from scholarship funds. One administrative detail makes it work: a student receiving contracted services is not considered enrolled in the public school for scholarship-eligibility purposes. A district can sell instruction to a child it does not enroll and does not count.
The adoption curve is dated and public. Roughly one in three of Florida's 67 districts by the August 2025 school-year start. More than half by October 2025, including Miami-Dade, Orange, Hillsborough and Duval. Fifty of 67 approved as providers by April 2026. About 75% by May 2026, with 52 partnered including Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco. Fifty-three approved or in process by July 2026. Miami-Dade opened more than 95 classes to students not enrolled in the district.
The surrounding context is a state where roughly 53% of K-12 students — about 1.9 million children — use an education option other than their assigned district school, and where districts are closing buildings. Orange County closed seven schools at the end of 2025-26 after a single-year enrollment decline of roughly 6,600 to 7,000 students, redirected $211 million to scholarships in 2025-26 against $152 million the prior year, and will open no new campuses until 2031 after opening 28 in ten years. Broward is down about 37,000 students over a decade. Escambia projected losing about 7,000 students to scholarships heading into 2026-27.
The behaviour is not universal, and the exceptions are what give it meaning. Texas has paid districts a Foundation School Program allotment of $1,500 per University Interscholastic League activity for each participating non-enrolled homeschool student since 2023. Under the original opt-in rule, 45 districts participated in 2024-25 — about 4% of districts statewide. When a 2025 law flipped the default to automatic participation, Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington and Katy opted out anyway. A Katy trustee's stated reason was that non-district students participating could take opportunities away from enrolled students.
West Virginia is a third case. Its Hope Scholarship pays every student the same base amount regardless of setting, and state law lists individual classes and extracurricular activities provided by a public school district among qualifying expenses. Joining as a provider is free. Reading the state's participating-provider directory as of 10 August 2026, we found no county school district listed across the school block from roughly M through Y. That is a near-zero, not a verified zero. The directory's search function could not be queried programmatically, and a district could in principle be registered elsewhere in the list. We record it as unfinished rather than settled.
Three states, three outcomes, and the variation tracks policy design rather than district disposition. Florida pays the same amount regardless of setting, permits sales to non-enrolled students, and has a scholarship funding organisation actively recruiting districts as providers. Texas tiers its homeschool award far below its private-school award. West Virginia has both the funding parity and the statutory permission but, as far as we can find, no organisation selling districts on selling.
Why this sits in a postsecondary index. Districts in one state have spent a year learning to price, list and staff part-time instruction for families they do not enroll. That is new work, and someone is preparing the people who do it. This note records the demand. It does not yet identify the supply.
Cite as: When Money Follows the Child. Three-quarters of Florida districts now sell to students they do not enroll. Field Note 08, August 2026. https://www.whenmoneyfollowsthechild.org/notes/08/ Accessed [date].