The dwindling enrollment in Miami-Dade County Public Schools is not because of competition posed by charter and private schools, the district superintendent said, but a waning of new students coming to the Miami area — including from fewer immigrants coming to the U.S.

The district, the sixth largest in the country, has 13,000 less students this school year compared to last. Last year's student body of more than 326,000 thinned to 313,000 going into the new year.

" The greatest impact of our enrollment issue is not students leaving us," Superintendent Jose Dotres said during a presentation to media on Wednesday, it's " students that are not coming to us."

This year's opening week of school saw only 379 more students in charter schools than last year's first week. The uptick in private s

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