Physics enrollment in Florida’s public high schools declines 3.7% from Fall 2022 to Fall 2023, giving two-year drop of 10.1%

Physics enrollment in Florida’s public high schools declined this year as it has in all but one year since the 2014-15 school year, according to statistics released this week by the Florida Department of Education. This year’s decrease of 3.7% was not as precipitous as last year’s 6.6% drop, but it gave a two-year total decline of 10.1%. Since 2014-15 school year, the first year for which course enrollment statistics are available, physics enrollment has declined by 23%.

Seminole and Brevard Counties had the highest physics enrollment rates in Florida, with 13.2% and 12.8% of those districts’ high school students taking physics in fall 2023. Those two districts were the only ones in Florida that had physics enrollment rates above the national rate of 11.1%, which was measured in the 2017-18 school year.

Of Florida’s largest “megadistricts”, Hillsborough County had the highest physics enrollment rate at 5.8%, even though its physics enrollment declined 16.6% in the last year. Duval County had the second highest rate among the megadistricts at 5.5%.

Overall, 4.1% of Florida public high school students were enrolled in a physics course.
While physics enrollment declined in many of the state’s school districts, some districts bucked the trend. Physics enrollment rose in both of the state’s leading districts, Seminole and Brevard Counties. In Seminole, physics enrollment rose by 4.7%. The increase in Brevard County was 5.1%. Duval County increased by an even greater percentage, 10.8%.

In Lee County, which has almost as many high school students as Duval, physics enrollment declined by 26.0%.

The one school year since 2014-15 in which statewide physics enrollment rose was 2021-22. Physics enrollment was 5.4% higher in the fall of 2021 than it had been in the fall of 2020.

While statewide enrollment in both Honors Physics 1 and non-Honors Physics 1 declined this year, AP Physics 1 enrollment rose for the second year in a row.