UPDATE: Tuesday, 3/17
Montford Middle School won't be monitoring any of the 139 students it sent on a trip to Washington, D.C. March 9-13, as the students will all be home for the two week period set by the Florida Department of Education.
Superindent Rocky Hanna addressed the field trips, taken by three district schools to New York City and D.C., yesterday during a press conference.
"If we did have domestic travel advisories, we absolutely wouldn’t have” sent groups of students on the trips, Hanna said, adding in total roughly 400 people went to the major cities. Hanna says since returning home, some students have reported having common cold and flu.
Still, no cases of COVID-19 have been reported by state health officials in Leon County.
The Leon School district will continue to provide updates during daily afternoon press conferences.
UPDATE: Monday, 3/16, 10:30 a.m.
Deerlake Middle School, one of the Leon schools that sent students on field trips earlier this month to New York City, sent a notice to the school community Monday morning.
“We are actively monitoring the students who went on our 8th grade trips,” it says. “Those that went on the trip will be out of school for 16 days.”
Deerlake Principal Steve Mills says 173 Deerlake students went on the field trip to New York City, and there was a 1-to-8 chaperone-to-student ratio. That means roughly 190 people were sent on the trip, and returned this weekend.
What process is the school undergoing to do that monitoring?
“All our chaperones were in charge of eight kids,” Mills told WFSU, adding the school has “asked the chaperones to check in with the kids to make sure we know how they’re feeling,” and “to make sure they’re still in contact with parents.”
Mills couldn’t say whether any students from the trip have reported any COVID-19 symptoms or other sickness. But, he said, “even before spring break happened, we had kids being tested for the flu. It’s a high flu season and high cold season.”
The number of students who went on the trip represent more than a tenth of the Deerlake student population, at 1,050
WFSU has reached out to Montford Middle School, which sent students on a field trip to Washington, D.C. from March 9-13, but has yet to hear back. Though, a web page listing the details of Montford's D.C. trip says the school booked "enough hotel rooms to accommodate 134 students."
Over the weekend, the Leon school district confirmed a third school had students on a field trip to either NYC or D.C., but has not said which school.
The rest of the district, following a mandate from the Department of Education, will be out for the next two weeks.
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Original story, 3/14
The Leon County School district confirms students from three district schools have recently travelled to New York and Washington, D.C. on school field trips. WFSU has requested the dates the students left Tallahassee for the trips and arrived back, the number of students and the schools involved – but has yet to hear back from district officials.
So far, a spokesman for the district confirmed the trips in a text message, writing: "We had three schools that were in DC and NY." WFSU is waiting on the district to confirm specific parts of New York the group travelled to.
Local news outlet Tallahassee Reports first reported March 7 that about 200 students and staff from Deerlake Middle School were set to go on a trip to New York City and Washington, D.C. The Deerlake Middle School website displays a calendar item that says students departed for the trip March 7 and were set to return today, March 14. Another district web page says Montford Middle School students went on a Washington, D.C. trip from March 9-13. Few other details have surfaced since then.
As of today, no local cases of coronavirus have been announced by county or state health officials. That’s not the case in New York City, however.
The New York Times is reporting New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio said today (March 14) 213 of the state’s 524 confirmed cases were in NYC. The outlet is also reporting the first death in NYC from COVID-19 today, making two in New York state, and 50 deaths from the virus nationwide.
The Washington Post reports 11 known cases in the District of Columbia as of this afternoon.
The students' return to Leon County come as Governor Ron DeSantis addressed cases of international and domestic travelers bringing COVID-19 into Florida this afternoon.
“We’ve had it not just from Asia, but from really all over the world,” DeSantis said this afternoon.
Cases from Egypt, Iran, and Ireland have popped up in the Sunshine State. But, DeSantis says, cases coming in from other states are getting more common.
“Now we’re starting to see it being brought in from other states – primarily New York. So, you have a lot of flights back and forth between New York and Fort Lauderdale. People are bringing it in, we’re starting to see more cases,” DeSantis said. “I would imagine we’re going to see that number grow over the next week or two.”
DeSantis held a press conference just after 4:30 p.m. at the state’s Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee. The governor told reporters there are three cases in South Florida’s Broward County that aren't linked to international travel, meaning there's evidence of community spread. The state Department of Health reported early this morning there were 77 confirmed cases in the state.
DeSantis says the state’s mitigation efforts have been put in place under the assumption community spread would take place.
Meanwhile, under a mandate from the Florida Department of Education, all public schools in the state will remain closed for two weeks. For Leon schools, that means all schools in the district will remain closed for the week following spring break, and a return is planned for March 30.
The district has plans to provide food for its roughly 10,000 food-insecure students, during the regularly-scheduled week of school Leon County students will miss because of the mandated closure.
District officials today announced a partnership with Second Harvest and United Way of the Big Bend to distribute food boxes to students’ families. The district says a plan for the feeding program to launch the week of March 23-27 is in the works now.
“Second Harvest food bank will provide the food. More information will be released to the community as final details are confirmed with all partners,” Superintendent Rocky Hanna said.
In a statement, the district says individuals and groups interested in learning more about how they can help, including volunteering to pack food boxes, can visit the Second Harvest website at www.fightinghunger.org.
The Leon school district will be getting some federal help with its food program. In a statement from the Florida Department of Agriculture, the agency says: “This afternoon, the U.S. Department of Agriculture granted waivers to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, providing flexibility to allow schools, child care institutions, and community organizations to feed children during the current COVID-19 school closures.”
This is a developing story, and will be updated. Contact reporter Ryan Dailey at rdailey@fsu.edu
