Pinellas County (Fla.) Schools confirmed Wednesday that county athletic director Marc Allison has instructed all high schools to not enter into new athletic contracts with St. Petersburg Catholic in any sport during the 2026-27 school year.
As reported by the Tampa Bay Times, it is the first time the district has formally moved to freeze out a private school.
District and school leaders met privately Tuesday to discuss concerns, a district statement said, and agreed to continue those discussions in the fall. According to Bob Putnam of the Times, the statement did not say what prompted the decision and did not address whether the freeze would be lifted.
Contracts signed before June 25 will be honored and all previously scheduled games will be played, the district said. Games that were scheduled but not yet under contract are off.
"The order marks an escalation of a long-simmering tension," Putnam reported. "Public school coaches have for years quietly declined to schedule private schools they suspected of recruiting, but never as a matter of district policy."
The directive lands as the district contends with a decade-long enrollment slide. Pinellas County Schools has lost roughly 17,000 students since 2018-19 — the steepest percentage drop of any large district in Florida — and now counts about 45,000 empty seats, Putnam added. Since Florida made vouchers universally available in 2023, more than 500,000 students statewide have used public money for private-school tuition or homeschooling. St. Petersburg Catholic has taken in at least two dozen transfers over the past two seasons.
“I sent a thank you note to Allison,” St. Petersburg High football coach Denis Gillen said. “This is out of control. I’m glad somebody finally stood up and did something about it.”
