BAY AREA -- Thousands of Bay area students headed back to school Monday. 

  • Back to school Monday for Pinellas, Manatee, Polk, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus
  • Students returned the classes Friday in Hillsborough
  • LINK: Visit our Back to School page

Hillsborough County students returned on Friday ahead of students today, who returned to classes in Pinellas, Polk, Manatee, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties. 

As the new school year kicks off across the Bay area, various districts are dealing with a variety of issues. 

POLK COUNTY

In Polk County, district officials opened the school year with a shortage of bus drivers. 

Polk County Public Schools estimates it’s short about 60 bus drivers. The district is asking parents to drop their children off at school if they can.

Meanwhile, there are big changes for hundreds of students in Pasco County. 

Hundreds of students will be on new campuses as part of the West Pasco rezoning. 

About 300 students moved from Seven Springs Middle and Mitchell High schools to River Ridge Middle and High schools. The new boundaries are meant to help with overcrowding in the district. 

PINELLAS

In Pinellas County, brand new safety measures are in place for the new year. 

There will now be one safety officer in each Pinellas County elementary school, middle and high schools will still have their school resource officers.

Pinellas County school’s police chief and he says the safety officers are just one aspect of security in place for the 2018-2019 school year. 

Over the summer, every single teacher, bus driver, even substitute teacher, underwent training specifically for mental health and active assailants.

Chief Luke Williams says students will also be trained—it won’t likely happen today, but it will happen sometime this week or next, and that training will be ongoing throughout the school year.

"Basically we’re looking at run, hide, fight," Williams said. "We’re giving the students and the teachers the options of basically looking at what’s the best criteria for looking at what’s in front of them and using those three options that we’re going to train with them through the course of the school year." 

Williams said the training will be age appropriate, focusing on not scaring students but making sure they are prepared for any situation that could arise. 

HERNANDO

In Hernando County, students at Moton Elementary were welcomed by an almost completely new staff.

Only eight of the school’s teachers were retained from last year. In April, all of the school’s teachers were let go.

Tenured teachers were reassigned. All other teachers had to reapply.

Principal Brent Gaustad, who has been in place since January, says everyone is feeling positive going into this new school year.

There have been thousands of dollars worth of renovations done over the summer to help motivate students this year.

"What we need kids to see is we care about the school we care about them we're going to make it beautiful for them,” Gaustad said.

CITRUS

In Citrus County, plans to have resource officers at all schools remains up in the air. 

Citrus Sheriff Mike Prendergast has refused to sign a contract with the school board. 

The board wants grant money the sheriff gets to be divided between the three agencies as well as an additional audit. 

Prendergast said that goes against part of a state bill and the agency needs that money. 

Still, the sheriff said he still plans to put deputies on campuses. 

Meanwhile, the district is moving forward with creating its own police department.