Miami Beach families will get their first public forum on local school issues since classes resumed when the city's Committee for Quality Education meets Tuesday, Aug. 25, at City Hall.

The two-hour session runs from 9 to 11 a.m. in the fourth-floor City Manager's Large Conference Room at 1700 Convention Center Drive, according to the city's events calendar. It comes 12 days into a school year shaped by Miami-Dade County Public Schools' largest enrollment decline in recent memory. The district lost 13,000 students between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years, according to Local 10, forcing 168 job cuts and the closure of nine schools.

None of the shuttered campuses are in Miami Beach, but the ripple effects touch local schools. Fewer students districtwide mean smaller per-pupil state funding allocations, and incoming superintendent Rafael Villalobos has signaled that more consolidations could follow. In an Aug. 13 interview with the Miami Herald, Villalobos said schools operating well below capacity would need to be combined so students get stronger academic programming and elective offerings.

The superintendent transition adds another layer.

The school board voted unanimously July 29 to name Villalobos, currently the South Region superintendent, as the district's next leader, WLRN reported. He replaces outgoing Superintendent Jose Dotres, whose contract runs through Feb. 14, 2027. Villalobos, 54, started his M-DCPS career as a special education teacher and was named principal of the year in 2020 while leading John A. Ferguson Senior High in Kendall. He has called under-enrollment the district's "greatest issue."

On the first day of school Aug. 13, Dotres compared last year's enrollment drop to Hurricane Andrew, calling it "the perfect storm" of contributing factors, according to WLRN.

The committee, organized by the City of Miami Beach, has historically passed motions that advance to the City Commission. Past actions include a 2021 push for a safer student drop-off plan at Miami Beach Senior High School and a 2022 request for better emergency communications between M-DCPS, Miami Beach police and city residents.

No published agenda for the Aug. 25 meeting was available as of Aug. 13. The City Commission is on summer recess until Sept. 10, making this one of the few city-level education forums before commissioners reconvene.

The meeting is open to the public at Miami Beach City Hall, 1700 Convention Center Drive, fourth floor. Residents with questions about Miami Beach Senior High, Nautilus Middle or Ruth K. Broad Bay Harbor K-8 Center can attend in person.