HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla (WFLA) – With just three days into the new school year, Hillsborough County Public Schools is reporting hundreds of COVID-19 cases in both employees and students.
HCPS has been tracking positive COVID-19 cases since the beginning of August when teachers returned to the classroom.
As of the 3 p.m. update Thursday on the HCPS COVID-19 Dashboard, Roosevelt Elementary School has the most employees testing positive with a total of 13. They have one student case.
8 On Your Side spoke with Vanessa Rukholm, whose daughter goes to Roosevelt. Rukholm said it’s worrisome when we just started school.
“It’s definitely very concerning that we have that high number of staff in our school who are sick with the virus,” she said.
8 On Your Side asked HCPS how many of the employee cases were teachers, the school district responded by saying, “because of health privacy issues, we cannot disclose the positions of the staff members impacted.”
However, we are told that staff from the school and substitute teachers will be covering for any instructional positions that may be impacted.
To inform parents, students, and staff about the spread of COVID-19 in schools, HCPS has launched a COVID-19 Dashboard that is updated automatically every four hours, seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
