ORLANDO, Fla. — School is out for Orange County students as summer officially began with the last bell on Wednesday.

But district leaders and employees have a lot of questions about how the next school year will look as budget concerns loom.

Orange County Public Schools Superintendent Maria Vazquez says she’s very excited and happy about how the 2024-2025 school year went.

She says the district is excited for the rollout of their 2030 strategic this summer, the thousands of graduates they have as well as the opening of new schools.

But she also talked about possible changes due to funding.

The first of those changes involves summer school. Vazquez says the ending of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, or ESSER, has led to them having to trim back their summer school offerings.

“So, there will be fewer opportunities this summer as a result of the loss of those dollars,” Vazquez explained. “But there will be all of our high schools, middle schools and most of our elementary schools that will be housing summer school.”

Just like the vast majority of districts in Florida, OCPS is also looking at declining enrollment.

Vazquez believes it is primarily due to the taxpayer funded vouchers for schooling in Florida known as school choice scholarships.

While she supports school choice for parents, she feels the vouchers have funneled funding away from public schools.

“I just want it to be properly funded,” Vazquez said. “What’s happened over the last few years is that the funding has come out of our pot and so we are given less dollars to continue to provide the services that we do.”

Vazquez says that the district has partnered with a third party firm to help bring back students who have left the district in hope of receiving more funding to help services their students.

It’s still unclear if budget cuts will impact the jobs of faculty and staff.

Spectrum News 13 reached out to the Orange County Classroom Teacher’s Association for comment but has yet to hear back.