Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state’s board of education may decide to withhold salaries from supervisors and board members who implement mask mandates

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Last month, DeSantis issued an executive order requiring the state’s health and education departments to create rules preventing local school mask mandates. Several lawsuits have since been filed to challenge the constitutionality of the decree.

Some school districts are considering mask warrants and at least one said masks would be needed unless parents opt out.

A statement from the governor’s office on Monday said the state board of education “may decide to withhold the salary of the district superintendent or school board members.”

The statement says one of DeSantis’ priorities is to protect the rights of parents.

“I think the fairest thing to do is just let the parents make the decisions,” DeSantis said last week at an event at a hospital in Tampa.

Florida is seeing a dramatic increase in Covid-19 cases. The state reported 134,506 new cases of Covid-19 over the past week on Friday, more than any other seven-day period during the pandemic.

The state reported 13,596 new cases of Covid-19 in children under the age of 12 last week, according to data from the Florida Department of Health (DOH).

There were 10,585 new cases for the age group reported the previous week, ending July 29, according to DOH data.

With many Florida children returning to school this week, the current positivity rate for new cases for children under the age of 12 is 20.5%, which is higher than the overall positivity rate for new cases of the state by 18.9%, according to DOH weekly reports.

The new case positivity rate for the 12-19 age group is 24.3%, according to DOH data released on Friday.

Keith Allen of CNN contributed to this report.

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