DESTIN, Fla. -- When Hurricane Katrina dropped 130 new students on Destin Middle School's door step with little more than what they were wearing, this resort town showered them and their parents with donated clothes, shoes, toiletries, book bags and school supplies.

EVACUEES IN FLORIDA SCHOOLS The numbers of evacuee students attending school in Florida counties as of Thursday: Alachua, 38 Baker, 3 Bay, 552 Bradford, 5 Brevard, 114 Broward, 143 Calhoun, 9 Charlotte, 13 Citrus, 18 Clay, 117 Collier, 39 Columbia, 28 DeSoto, 0 Dixie, 6 Duval, 393 Escambia, 719 Flagler, 21 Franklin, 4 Gadsden, 3 Gilchrist 4 Glades, 4 Gulf, 33 Hamilton, 0 Hardee, 0 Hendry, 0 Hernando, 36 Highlands, 6 Hillsborough, 303 Holmes, 7 Indian River, 19 Jackson, 37 Jefferson, 0 Lafayette, 0 Lake, 62 Lee, 63 Leon, 176 Levy, 6 Liberty, 5 Madison, 8 Manatee, 36 Marion, 44 Martin, 12 Miami-Dade, 260 Monroe, 12 Nassau, 31 Okaloosa, 701 Okeechobee, 4 Orange, 245 Osceola, 101 Palm Beach, 193 Pasco, 84 Pinellas, 136 Polk, 96 Putnam, 15 St. Johns, 52 St. Lucie, 23 Santa Rosa, 337 Sarasota, 56 Seminole, 68 Sumter, 6 Suwannee, 13 Taylor, 3 Union, 1 Volusia, 73 Wakulla, 14 Walton, 421 Washington, 19

"When we welcome them with open arms after everything they've been through, they start crying," principal Sherri Houp said. "I feel humbled by the whole experience."

Destin Middle is among dozens of schools across Florida that have enrolled 6,056 Katrina evacuees as of Thursday. They are throwing class-size limits and budgets out of kilter in some districts, but school officials say most are absorbing the newcomers with little strain.

Districts that exceed class-size limits solely due to evacuees will avoid financial penalties, but the matter of paying for their schooling remains unresolved, said Department of Education spokeswoman Jennifer Fennell.

Nearly half of the Katrina kids are at schools in the Panhandle's five westernmost counties, the area closest to Katrina's devastation. The heaviest concentrations are in beach communities such as Destin, where they are staying in hotels, private homes and condominiums rather than shelters.

Duval County accepted 393 students from families displaced from the Gulf coast -- the highest number of any Florida county outside the Panhandle.

Many are from relatively affluent families and had attended private or parochial schools in Louisiana and Mississippi.

"The quality of education here is very good," said Charles Lyle III, a retired school superintendent from Bay St. Louis, Miss., whose 11-year-old son, Charles IV, is in the sixth grade at Destin Middle. "They've been extremely helpful, very organized."

Seventh-grader Blake Peterson, 13, of Pearl River, Miss., also gave Destin Middle a passing grade.

"At our old school we only had two things to choose from for lunch, and here we got so much to choose from," he said. "And the teachers are a lot nicer."

"It's fun," said another seventh-grader, 12-year-old Blaine Kern III, of New Orleans. "There's not that much homework."

Okaloosa County, which includes Destin, was down to 701 evacuee students as of Thursday. That's second highest of any Florida district after Okaloosa had led the state with nearly 800 last week. Some students have been leaving to return home.

Within two days of Katrina, three Okaloosa schools, including Destin Middle, fell out of compliance with current-year class size limits being phased in through 2010. Destin Middle's enrollment increased by 20 percent to 777 students although about 20 Katrina kids have since withdrawn to return home.

"We're using every nook and cranny," Houp said. "We are hiring a couple more teachers."

One of her new hires is a displaced teacher from New Orleans, and Okaloosa has invited others to apply as substitutes. The Department of Education has streamlined the state certification process for displaced teachers.

Nearby Destin Elementary cut off enrollment after receiving more than 100 Katrina kids and is sending additional newcomers to Niceville about 10 miles away.

In neighboring Walton County, some new enrollees are being bused inland from Santa Rosa Beach, where Van R. Butler Elementary School hit its 850-pupil capacity after accepting 220 evacuees, said district supervisor of instruction Marsha Pugh.

Walton may be facing the biggest squeeze of any Florida district. More than 500 evacuee students initially increased enrollment by 8 percent, but the number had dropped to 421 by Thursday.

School districts can obtain state dollars for evacuees included in October and February head counts, but U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings plans to ask Congress to pay up to 90 percent of their schooling. The Federal Emergency Management Agency could provide the rest, she said during a visit to Houston.

Florida's burden is small compared to Texas, which has 40,000 Louisiana students, many of them underprivileged and living in shelters.

The Okaloosa School Board has earmarked $1 million for Operation Open Doors, Open Hearts and $600,000 already has gone to the two Destin schools and Fort Walton Beach High School.

The money is being spent to hire teachers, buy books and school supplies, run more school buses and provide free breakfasts and lunches to all displaced students, said Okaloosa School Superintendent Don Gaetz.

"They don't have to be stigmatized and wear a red `H' on them saying `Hurricane,' " he said. "We've coded them into our computer so when they go through the lunch line they get taken care of at no cost."

Gaetz said the district also is providing health screenings and vaccinations, free primary pediatric health care and doing academic assessments because most evacuees came without school and medical records.

Escambia County, which includes Pensacola, had 719 Katrina kids in the latest count, tops in the state. They easily have been absorbed into a system of 43,000 children without affecting class size limits, said district spokesman Ronnie Arnold.

Bay County also has remained in compliance after enrolling about 550 evacuee students, said Dan Nix, the district's chief financial officer, but he added "If this had happened in future years, we definitely would be in trouble."

Fennell said districts can seek waivers to exempt evacuee students from the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test, or FCAT, used to grade schools in addition to tracking individual performance.

High school students also can meet graduation requirements by passing college entrance exams instead of the FCAT, she said. They must meet their home state requirements rather than Florida standards to earn a diploma.

Okaloosa's Gaetz said he saw no need to exempt Katrina kids from the FCAT.

"It is our obligation and privilege to teach them," he said. "We're not going to allow the hurricane to be an excuse for lowering our standards or lessening our efforts."