On Friday, March 7, Austin Independent School District (AISD) announced it was cancelling all international, district-sponsored school trips until March 31 due to an increased risk of exposure to the COVID-19 disease, commonly known as Coronavirus. 

The band, orchestra and choir organizations at Bowie were planning a performance tour over Spring Break to Ireland, which was cancelled due to the district-wide decision. 

“I was really bummed and really upset,” junior Jovi Smith said. “I feel like I would have been more upset if I had a false hope, but I knew the trip was going to be cancelled with a sort of gut feeling. Mostly, people are just frustrated with the decision that AISD made and they think it was over-precautious and the wrong decision in general. Everybody I’ve talked to is just really upset.”

AISD made their decision based on a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that stated school administrations should consider postponing or cancelling international school trips. 

“A new warning guidance for higher education with students participating in international travel was released,” Principal Mark Robinson said. “When the CDC took action on Friday, I think that’s what informed the district in making the decision that they did. Personally, I was disappointed, because I know I was looking forward to [the trip] so I can only imagine how all the students and their parents must feel.”

According to Smith, fine arts students planning on going to Ireland will most likely have a boring Spring Break since their plans got cancelled.  

“Obviously it was AISD’s decision and I’m sure they were just trying to be conscious of the health of everybody who was going, but I think it was a little overdramatic,” Smith said. “They have decided they are going to delay the trip to a later date, however I feel like over time, [Coronavirus] will just get worse so they should not have cancelled it. I think they should have still put the trip on and everything probably would have been fine.” 

According to Robinson, the developments forthcoming will be about refunds, travel vouchers, and closing up all the final expenses. He indicated that there will be a lot of work still to be done to deal with the trip being cancelled.

“We were all very excited about the trip,” Robinson said. “Professionally, as a high school principal and seeing the news like when South by Southwest getting cancelled and all these other events happened, I understand why the district made the decision.” 

In response to other AISD announcements about the Coronavirus, Robinson shared precautions to take in relation to Coronavirus and the administration has passed out disinfecting materials to every classroom. 

“At a faculty meeting during [the most recent] late start, our nurse had about 20 minutes on the agenda to talk to everybody about Coronavirus,” Robinson said. “It allowed the teachers to hear from a medical professional, the things that they could do to protect themselves and their students. We were able to order extra sanitizing disinfecting and we are also getting additional hand sanitizer distributed. I bet you’ll see one of those in every classroom.”

*The story will be updated by Dispatch staff as more information is available.