Dozens of Florida students crowd to get on school buses

Photos have emerged of dozens of students at a Florida high school crowding to get on buses following the first day of in person classes.

The images were taken of students at Bartow High School in Polk County, just outside Tampa, last week. 

Ashlee Caraway, a former student whose younger sister still attends the school, posted the photos on Facebook with the caption: ‘#covid19.’ 

They show dozens of students crowding together outside the school as they waited to board buses at the end of the day. 

Some students can be seen wearing masks in the photos. 

The photos, which appear to be screenshots from a Snapchat video, have the caption ‘whole lotta social distancing’ and ‘social distancing to the MAX’ written across them. 

In an interview with the Daily Beast, Caraway said the lack of social distancing enforcement shown in the photos was ‘messed up’. 

‘I want people to see how messed up it is,’ Caraway said of her decision to share the photos on social media. 

‘If the health department went in there they would be shut down.’ 

No students at Bartow High have tested positive for COVID-19 in the week since classes began but a student at the Sumerlin Academy was confirmed to have the virus on the second day of in person classes. 

Sumerlin is a public military school that shares a campus with Bartow. The military school’s students sometimes attend classes at Bartow facilities. 

Caraway said her younger sister had decided to stay home for the rest of the week after learning the Sumerlin student had tested positive. 

‘She decided to stay home and let the week ride out,’ Caraway said.

Bartow High is one of the 150 schools that falls under the Polk County school district. 

A spokesman for the district said they were aware of the social distancing issues apparent in the photos and had been working to address them. 

‘Staff… assessed conditions after the first two days of school,’ the spokesman said. 

‘On Wednesday afternoon, the school started releasing students by bus number to further spread them out and help cut down on crowding. 

‘School staff are present during dismissal and are reminding students not to bunch together.’

He said the school was taking the temperatures of 20 percent of the student population, which is required by the district. 

Polk County currently accounts for just over 17,000 of Florida’s 630,000 cases. More than 2,400 of the county’s cases are between the ages of 15 and 24.