​The athletic director for Pinellas County Schools has directed every public high school in the district not to schedule St. Petersburg Catholic in any sport during the 2026-27 school year.It is the first time the district has formally moved to freeze out a private school.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn a statement Wednesday, the district confirmed that county athletic director Marc Allison has instructed all high schools not to enter into new athletic contracts with St. Petersburg Catholic until further notice. District and school leaders met privately on Tuesday to discuss concerns, the statement said, and agreed to continue those discussions in the fall.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. That includes the Barons’ football season opener against Gibbs and a volleyball match against Northeast High.Games that were scheduled but yet under contract are off. St. Petersburg Catholic’s volleyball team dropped five other matches against county public schools.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe order marks an escalation of a long-simmering tension. Public school coaches have for years quietly declined to schedule private schools they suspected of recruiting, but never as a matter of district policy.For some public school coaches, the move was overdue.“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.”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.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn February, the school board voted to close Cross Bayou Elementary and Disston Academy and merge other campuses, and a second, larger round of closures and consolidations is due before the board this fall.District officials have attributed the decline to falling birth rates, the cost of living, hurricane displacement and a rise in homeschooling. Hendrick has called it a decades-long problem the whole community faces, and projects the trend will persist through 2050.Private schools are part of that landscape. 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 is approved to participate in the state’s Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options program, and tells prospective families that all of them are expected to apply for a state scholarship, according to the school’s website.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe scholarships are available to any Florida student