TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida’s Board of Education decided Friday to provide private school vouchers to parents who say a public school district’s mask-wearing requirements amount to harassment of their children.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had ordered the state education department to come up with ways to pressure school districts against creating mask mandates and to punish them if they do. DeSantis has long supported efforts to expand school privatization and says parents should be able to decide how to provide for their children’s health and education.
After the governor said the education board could withhold money from school districts or take other actions allowed under Florida law, the board invoked an existing law meant to protect children against bullying, adding “COVID-19 harassment” as a prohibited form of discrimination. It defined this as “any threatening, discriminatory, insulting, or dehumanizing verbal, written or physical conduct” students suffer as a result of COVID-19 protocols such as mask or testing requirements and isolation measures that “have the effect of substantially interfering with a student’s educational performance.”
“We’re not going to hurt kids. We’re not going to pull money that’s going to hurt kids in any way,” said board member Ben Gibson.
But he said the rule the board approved has the effect of law, and that if school districts don’t comply, the board could hold up the transfer of state money.
“If a parent wants their child to wear a mask at school, they should have that right. If a parent doesn’t want their child to wear a mask at school, they should have that right,” Gibson said.
In response to the governor’s order, the Department of Health approved a rule saying students can wear masks, but school districts must allow parents to opt their children out of any local mandates.
So far, two Florida school districts have decided to follow recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and require masks when they restart classes next week, citing Florida’s dramatic rise in coronavirus infections.
More than a dozen Florida parents filed a lawsuit Friday in Miami federal court against DeSantis, the state Department of Education and some of the largest school districts, alleging that the ban on mask mandates violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. They say their disabled children will be unable to attend public schools with unmasked classmates because they are at high risk of covid-19 infection.
Florida leads the nation in COVID-19 related hospitalizations, rising from 12,516 on Thursday to 12,864, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Hospital data shows 2,680 of those patients required intensive care, using about 42% of the ICU beds in the state, compared with less than 20% they were using two weeks ago.
The state added 22,783 new covid-19 cases Thursday, according to the CDC. It’s the highest single-day count since the pandemic began and raises Florida’s seven-day average of new cases to an all-time high of 18,933.
Thursday’s death tally of 199 raised the average deaths per day to 90 over the past week, twice what it was two weeks ago, according to the CDC.
But at a news conference Friday, DeSantis reiterated his general opposition to restrictions such as lockdowns, business closures and mask mandates.
“In terms of imposing any restrictions, that’s not happening in Florida. It’s harmful. It’s destructive. It does not work,” he said, noting that Los Angeles County had a winter surge despite all its restrictions. “We really believe that individuals know how to best assess their risks. We trust them to be able to make those decisions. We just want to make sure everybody has information.”