Orange schools to launch baseball, softball academy to lure back students
Orlando Sentinel | By Steven Walker |
Orange County Public Schools plans to launch a “microschool” in August for elementary school students passionate about baseball and softball, hoping the tiny, sports-focused academy will help lure back families who’ve opted for private schools or homeschooling in recent years.
If the new offering proves successful, OCPS could look to expand the concept and open microschools — a term otherwise used to describe home-schooling groups — for other activities, like soccer, music and martial arts, said Harold Border, OCPS chief strategy officer.
“We fully recognize parents and families have choice. We want to make sure we’re providing the choice, all of the choices,” he said.
The small school for baseball and softball aims to enroll fewer than 50 students in grades 3 to 6 and will run much like a traditional public school — but with baseball and softball practices taking the place of electives.
The school will operate out of Cheney Elementary School in east Orange County, which like many Orange public schools has empty classrooms, with 385 students enrolled this month on a campus meant for 580.
OCPS, like other Florida districts, has lost thousands of students in the past few years and its expects to lose thousands more in coming years. It attributes the decline to lower birth rates, a loss of immigrant students amid the Trump administration’s deportation push and the state-funded voucher program, which now offers all students a scholarship they can use for private school or homeschooling services.
As a result, the district lost about $41 million in per-pupil state funding this year and plans to close seven schools. It also slashed 5% off all department budgets and cut about 200 district-level positions.
Now, one of Florida’s largest school districts is looking for new ways to attract students.
Last week, OCPS sent an interest survey to school parents and families of students who recently left the district. The survey closed Thursday, and exact results weren’t immediately available. But Border said the district received roughly 2,000 responses with a “very high percentage” of parents expressing interest in the microschool.
The school would field two baseball and two softball teams, which would travel on weekends to compete in tournaments.
As her son practiced with Orlando Babe Ruth’s all-star team Thursday evening at Trotter’s Park, Erica Shaut said a school that combined baseball and academics was intriguing.
“Cool,” said her son Alexander, a fifth grader, when he heard the idea.
But Shaut said she sends her three sons to Catholic school — with the state’s vouchers helping out with tuition — because having religion in school is key for her, so a baseball-focused public school likely wouldn’t change her choice.
“I don’t think, in my heart of hearts, that I would be able to say what they would get there is better or more important than what they get in Catholic school,” she said.
Graeme Meier, 9, at shortstop during Orlando Babe Ruth practices at Trotters Park, on Thursday, May 14, 2026
Jennifer Laible, whose 14-year-old son Ethan plays on the league’s middle school squad, has homeschooled all three of her kids and takes state-funded vouchers to help cover the costs. She likes the flexibility homeschooling gives her family so a more flexible public-school option could be “phenomenal.”
But as she watched practice at Trotter’s off Lee Road, she said the program would make more sense if it were targeted at middle school students. “There should be no third graders coming out and playing baseball for three hours,” she said.
She also worried that students’ academics could suffer if there’s too much focus on athletics. Not everyone is headed for Major League Baseball, and kids need to have an academic foundation no matter what, she said.
“If your English, math, reading are not rock solid, it doesn’t matter how good you are, because eventually you’re going to age out,” Laible said.
In its email to parents last week, OCPS said a district-run microschool will combine athletic opportunity with “strong academics.”
“We just really believe that our facilities are top notch, our staff are incredible, and if we can begin offering these kinds of choices for families, we believe that families are going to choose to take those opportunities with Orange County Public Schools,” he said.
