Governor Ron DeSantis issued an executive order that prohibits school districts from adopting mask mandates for all students and staff, even though Florida hospitals are overflowing withbCOVID patients. DeSantis has presidential aspirations.
The leadership of Miami-Dade County and Broward County have decided to defy DeSantis’ reckless decision and protect their students and staff.
MIAMI – Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho said he agrees with recommendations by health experts that Miami-Dade County Public Schools implement a face mask mandate with an opt-out medical accommodation starting Aug. 23.
The School Board of Miami-Dade County will discuss and finalize on the issue when they meet at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools students start the 2021-22 school year in a week. New teachers had to report on Aug. 11 and the first regular teacher planning is on Wednesday.
Given the evidence on vaccine breakthrough cases, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status on July 27.
According to the CDC, the level of transmissibility remains high in Miami-Dade. The Aug. 6-12 case positivity rate was 20.3% in Miami-Dade, according to the Florida Department of Health. The Delta variant is the main driver of the ongoing COVID surge.
Broward County Public Schools will begin the new 2021-22 school year on Aug. 18 with a face mask mandate. School Board of Broward County members first approved a universal face mask mandate on July 28.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order on July 30 to protect parents’ freedom to opt-out from school districts’ face mask mandates and tasked the Florida Department of Education with enforcing the order….
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Anyone with common sense will ignore DeSantis whose ambition outstrips his talent. He’s looks ridiculous trying to flex his authoritarian muscle in the middle of one of worst Covid surges. DeSantis promotes himself as being pro-life, but his whiny libertarian “freedom’ posturing as the state is facing a monumental outbreak of Covid makes him look like the architect of the DeSantis death squad. I hope the voters will get rid of this disaster, DeSantis in the next election.
By the way scientists are recommending a third vaccine dose for those over 65 eight months after people had their second dose. They estimate that efficacy against the virus to drops to about 55% for older people after eight months.
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I will definitely get the booster shot.
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Latest online moniker for DiSantis: “DeathSentence.”
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I hope public schools do more thinking for themselves. They haven’t been served well by the people who advise them or issue mandates.
Governor DeSantis uses public schools as a punching bag to promote his political career. He’ll continue to do that whether they follow his proclamations or not, so publiic schools should serve public students and ignore the rest of the noise.
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scary, long years of that reality across the nation: schools as a PUNCHING BAG.
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Public school families shouldn’t fall for it either. Politicians like DeSantis are trying to create chaos and discord in your schools so he can promote his own political career and his privatization ideology. He tried it with the “critical race theory” panic and now he’s doing it with masks.
Don’t fall for it. He doesn’t support public schools and he adds absolutely no value to any public school. Just look at the last year! Did not lift a finger on behalf of public school students in that state. Accomplished nothing for them.
Public schools are permitted to focus on public school students rather than focusing on whichever anti-public school political agenda is currently fashionable
Their duty is not to DeSantis and his ideological privatization crusade. Their duty is to public school students and their local community. If they serve them they’ll be fine.
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Public schools don’t have to privatize, they don’t have to go along with these stupid political gimmicks and they don’t have to “reinvent” themselves because three Ivy League economists wrote a paper about how they could be more like Uber.
They serve public school students. That’s the goal. Is DeSantis improving public schools? No, he is not. In fact, he has complete contempt for them. That’s all they need to know. The rest is just noise.
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You’re on a roll, Chiara! I love this: “they don’t have to ‘reinvent’ themselves because three Ivy League economists wrote a paper about how they could be more like Uber”
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The only people that Ron DeSantis might attract that will vote for him in a national election will be from Traitor Trump’s mindless MAGA mob of zombies.
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Only half the country.
Phew, for a second there I was concerned.
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Just so everyone is clear what this is about:
“Doug Ducey
Families should be empowered to make decisions when it comes to their child’s education. That’s why the #COVID19 Educational Recovery Benefit program will provide up to $7,000 per student to those facing financial and educational barriers due to overbearing school mandates.”
Not about public school students. They’re launching these battles in public schools but they have absolutely nothing to do with public school students – our students are just props to be used to push private school vouchers.
Public school students will derive no benefits from any of this and it isn’t even about them.
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“How Matt Gaetz helped make Ron DeSantis” (Politico 5/21). As we wait for the FBI’s final take on Gaetz, a similar story is unfolding in Minnesota. The Chair of the College Republicans at St. Thomas University (Minn.) was arrested in Gaetz’ congressional district on charges related to under age girls. With similar timing to the female Chair’s arrest, a big Republican donor (“wealthy playboy”) was arrested in Minnesota. He has close ties to the state’s Republican Party chair who is married to “the worst midterm (2018) congressman”, Jim Hegedon. The former blog of Hegedon was reported to be anti-semitic anti-Islamic, anti- Mormon, sexist, homophobic, against Native Americans and against a secular state.
A professor at St.Thomas joined the Claremont Institute Fellows in 2019 along with the Daily Caller’s head honcho. Since 2019, the following men have been selected among others as Claremont Fellows, Christopher Rufo, James O’Keefe, Charlie Kirk, Jack Posobiec and Jack Murphy (a manager at Wash. D.C. charter schools who was the subject of negative articles at WAMU and Think Progress).
Many Americans have been surprised by the reports out of Minnesota, a place that at one time had a reputation for good values.
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I would just ask public school families and public school leaders to review what the ed reform “movement” has contributed to public schools or public school students during this pandemic:
standardized test mandates, massive political campaign for private school vouchers, ginning up “critical race theory” panic which disrupted public schools just as public schools were working to come out of the pandemic followed by ginnng up mask panic which further disrupted public schools, followed by lobbying to protect federal funding of for-profit charter management orgs.
Is there anything on that list that benefitted any public school or public school student anywhere?
We’re still hiring these people as consultants and taking direction from them? Why?
The measure for public schools should be whether any of their work benefits public school students. The measure isn’t how “disrupted” schools are, or how much like Amazon marketplace they are, or how many trendy corporate management gimmicks schools can adopt. Are the ed reform echo chamber benefitting your schools or students? Does the benefit outweigh the cost?
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Surely a country that finally, finally, examined why we stayed in Afghanistan for 20 years can finally, finally examine why we have followed the ed reform “movement” lockstep for 20 years on public school policy.
Has it worked out for public schools and public school students? Are we getting any return at all on this multi-billion dollar investment and what’s the opportunity cost to adhering to the directives of an echo chamber and not listening to anyone outside it?
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First sentence- money for the weapons industry, military contractors, …explains why the politicians forced Americans to pay for the war in Afghanistan for two decades. Taxpayer money for church greed and groups like Fordham, CAP, the 74, and potential profits for Walton heirs, Bill Gates, …explains the 20 year war against public schools.
Those identified in my first paragraph rob Main Street and strong arm for U.S. oligarchs.
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DeSantis has gotta be getting Rubles.
https://truthout.org/articles/florida-moves-closer-to-punishing-districts-defying-desantiss-ban-on-mask-rules/
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good link! gotta be rubles.
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