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With about two weeks until the start of a new school year, Miami dad Jerry Greenberg is feeling anxious.
With the more contagious Delta variant of Covid-19 fueling record positive cases across Florida, Greenberg’s biggest fear is that his son and daughter will catch the deadly respiratory disease even though they wear masks.
“They will be exposed to [other] children don’t wear masks and they could get sick, ”Greenberg said. “I think it’s safe for them to come home in person, but only if they’re all wearing masks. Without masks, I don’t see how that can be safe. “
Thousands of other parents across Florida find themselves in the same predicament as Greenberg, whose son is entering ninth grade at Palmetto Senior High School and whose daughter is entering sixth grade at Palmetto College. The two public schools are located in Miami-Dade County, where the state’s largest school district requires all students to wear masks on school buses, but has not enforced the restriction on campus.
In a statement earlier this week, Miami-Dade Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the district was reassessing its decision to implement an optional mask policy in light of updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that all children two years of age and older, as well as all school staff, wear masks indoors.
Carvalho is relying on the advice of a working group of medical and public health experts, which is expected to make its recommendation in the coming week before the start of the August 23 school year.
Except that far-right Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is weighing heavily on any decisions school districts across the state make to force students to wear masks inside educational buildings.
In recent weeks, DeSantis has turned right again by reiterating its contempt for the Covid-19 restriction measures. He held a secret meeting with anti-mask health professionals, signed an executive order that gives parents the final decision on whether their children will wear masks to school, and promised to cut state funding to any school district that requires children to cover their faces.
DeSantis, who rose to the top of the 2024 Republican national candidate slate by continuing the legacy of former President Donald Trump, even earned a harsh rebuke from Joe Biden, who said on Wednesday that governors pushing the anti-mask policies “get out of the way of the people who are trying to do the right thing”. The next day, DeSantis hit back at a press conference.
“Well, let me tell you this: If you’re going against parenting rights in Florida, I’m standing in your way,” DeSantis said. “Well, I can tell you that in Florida the parents are going to make that decision.”
DeSantis’ threat to suspend state funding hasn’t stopped some school districts from pushing back his ultimatum.
The Alachua County School Board voted to require all students to wear masks for the first two weeks of class. The Leon County School Board, where the state capital Tallahassee is located, has implemented a mandatory mask rule for students in Kindergarten to Grade 8. And after initially indicating that he would comply with DeSantis’ order, the Broward County School District announced this week that it will keep its mask tenure in place.
While DeSantis’ uncompromising approach plays well with the Trumpian Republican Party base, his stance is puzzling given recent state data on Covid-19 infections shows more children are getting sick and going to the hospital. the hospital during this fourth wave, said Ceresta Smith, a retired Miami-Dade public school teacher, 67, whose granddaughter lives with her.
“You ask for trouble when our intensive care units fill up and hospitals are overcrowded,” Smith said. “The mere thought that my granddaughter finds herself in a situation where she is not taking extreme precautions is worrying. “
Between July 23 and July 30, Florida recorded 10,785 new Covid-19 infections in children under the age of 12 for an average of 1,540 new cases per day, according to the State Department of Health. This is an increase of over 600% compared to the same period in June. Data from the health department also shows that pediatric hospitalizations of Covid-19 averaged 32 cases per day during the week of July 23.
Amid the resurgence of Covid-19 in Florida, even conservative educators are struggling to accept DeSantis’ hard line.
Shawn Beightol, a teacher at Miami-Dade High School who is Republican, said the governor was not following key conservatism principles of allowing local governments to make their own decisions. Even if he’s vaccinated, there’s a small chance he could still catch COVID-19 and get sick, he noted. “By threatening to withhold funding, DeSantis is not practicing conservatism and is removing control from local school boards,” Beightol said. “It’s more of a fascist-type model of leadership.”
By preventing school districts from requiring students to wear masks, Beightol said, Florida public school staff and students will face another year of disruption and calamity as a result of those exposed to people. infected should be isolated and quarantined. “Last year at my school we started at 80% of our capacity,” Beightol said. “In one month, we were at 50% of our capacity, then at 10%. I think this year will start the same way.
Beightol, who is the administrator of several Facebook pages where public school teachers can express themselves, said educators fall into three categories: voice pro-maskers, voice anti-maskers and pro-maskers who remain out of sight.
“I don’t think that putting our lives and the lives of our children is worth the risk,” Beightol said. “The right thing to do is put on masks until we know for sure how effective the vaccines are against the Delta variant or any variant.”
Meanwhile, Miami’s father Greenberg said he was angry DeSantis did not adhere to CDC guidelines on the use of student masks. His daughter, who is 11, is still in the age group that is not yet eligible for COVID-19 inoculations, Greenberg said. And not sure even her vaccinated son is safe.
“It is becoming increasingly clear that this variant poses a serious risk to children,” Greenberg said. “It seems to me that our governor is content to send our children to a slaughterhouse to score political points with his base. There is no excuse for not following the science.
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