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The battle over school masking came to a head when the administration of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis targeted two school districts over new warrants that violate his executive order seeking to prevent them.
In letters to public school leaders in Alachua and Leon counties, the state’s education department said the districts were being investigated for non-compliance because their new policies in masks matters do not give parents complete freedom to remove their children from masking at school. Districts have been threatened with the possibility of being denied funding equal to the salaries of their superintendents and school board members – more than $ 300,000.
In its response, public school leaders in Alachua County made it clear that they would not change course. School officials pointed to the sharp increase in cases and hospitalizations locally, as well as an increase in positive tests among school employees, as reasons for a mask warrant. They also said two of their guardians had just died from complications from Covid.
“We’re trying to do what’s best for the students,” said Jackie Johnson, district communications director. “We try to protect their health and safety and the health and safety of our staff and families. “
Across the country, Republican governors like DeSantis have signed executive orders or enacted laws aimed at preventing local officials from imposing new mask mandates. As the school year begins as the delta variant of the coronavirus increases, some local officials have decided defying the measures is the only option.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently revised their guidelines for schools, recommending that all students and staff wear masks. Children under 12 remain ineligible for vaccines, and hospitalizations of Covid among children are on the rise in places with major epidemics.
“The only way for these children to be protected is to do what we did last [school] year, which socially masks and distances and ensures that all teachers are vaccinated, ”said Dr. Paul Offit, vaccine researcher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Some of Texas’ largest school districts are demanding masks in defiance of Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order banning such warrants. The South Carolina attorney general wrote to the mayor of Columbia telling him he had to rescind his mask mandate for daycares and elementary and middle schools by Friday; the mayor has sworn not to comply. At the end of last month, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey responded to criticism of the month-long law he signed banning masks and vaccination warrants by pledging not to turn the tide.
More than half a dozen Republican-led states have enacted such laws or decrees, and a number of lawsuits have been filed against the bans. A state court recently issued an injunction temporarily overturning the ban in Arkansas while a case progresses.
Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, said that while the courts are likely to uphold the measures, he would be tempted, as a local official , essentially “daring” a state to apply them, which could prove politically risky.
Battles are advancing rapidly in Florida, where DeSantis has positioned itself as the leader in the backlash of the Covid-inspired mandates. Florida is experiencing the worst of the pandemic outbreak, breaking case counts and hospitalization records. It ranks in the middle of vaccination rates among states, with around 50% of its population having been fully vaccinated, according to an NBC News tracker.
In this context, DeSantis issued an executive order on Friday saying that the CDC’s new guide to masks for students “lacks” scientific justification and that the state can suspend funding for schools that institute mandates.
DeSantis told a press conference this week that the masking is ultimately “a parent’s decision.”
“Nobody says you can’t” wear a mask, he said. “But if you are someone who is concerned about this, who thinks that maybe it is not the right thing for your child, then I think you should have the right to make this ultimate decision.”
He has taken heat not only from President Joe Biden but also from some other Republicans who say such decisions should be left to the localities.
“Ron DeSantis has long exceeded expectations in responding to the pandemic,” said former representative Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla. “However, this time around DeSantis’ once-healthy passion against excessive Covid restrictions like school closings appears to be irrational fanaticism” as cases and hospitalizations reach record highs.
Schools in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin also clashed with the Texas rulers by promulgating mask warrants despite Abbott’s order.
Abbott and State Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a joint statement Wednesday that any local official or school defying the order would be “brought to justice.” Schools and officials issuing mask warrants also face a fine of $ 1,000.
“The way forward is based on personal responsibility – not government mandates,” Abbott said.
Local officials in some of Texas’ most populous jurisdictions don’t see it the same way and are willing to risk the consequences. Hospitalizations in the state have increased by nearly 100% in the past two weeks. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, county manager, told a press conference that only two pediatric intensive care beds were available in a 19-county area surrounding Dallas.
Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, who instituted a mask warrant, told MSNBC this week: “I know I’ll be held accountable for any decisions I make. But I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
A similar battle is unfolding in South Carolina, where Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, a Democrat, has declared a state of emergency forcing daycares and elementary and high schools to demand masks. Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, challenged the tenure and state attorney general Alan Wilson wrote in a letter that Benjamin had to back down by Friday or risk losing state funding.
Benjamin has said in an interview that he will not budge and is committed to fighting legal challenges all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
“It is now an unvaccinated pandemic,” he said. “And there is a very relatively easily identifiable population of those who are not vaccinated and do not have the choice to be vaccinated. And these are young people under the age of 12. So, let’s at least agree to protect them. “
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