{"id":13935,"date":"2021-08-06T13:50:06","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T17:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=13935"},"modified":"2021-08-06T13:50:19","modified_gmt":"2021-08-06T17:50:19","slug":"florida-education-leaders-tie-mask-wearing-to-harassment-from-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/08\/06\/florida-education-leaders-tie-mask-wearing-to-harassment-from-governor\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida education leaders tie mask-wearing to ‘harassment’ from Governor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Students subjected to the \u201charassment\u201d of having to wear masks in class would be eligible to transfer at taxpayer expense<\/a> into another public or private school under an emergency rule adopted Friday by the state Board of Education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The move is the latest thrust by Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 administration\u00a0against mask mandates\u00a0<\/a>endorsed by\u00a0several Florida school districts\u00a0<\/a>on the eve of the start of school, amid one of the nation\u2019s biggest surges in new Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t have more local control than control by a parent,\u201d said Tom Grady, Board chair<\/a>, during an hour-long, emergency phone meeting Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hope Scholarships, which could be made available to parents wanting to keep their kids free of face coverings in mask-required districts, are available to students who have been assaulted or face harassment, hazing or bullying in their schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the rule adopted by the board would extend those scholarships \u201cto instances where a child has been subjected to Covid-19 harassment.\u201d They \u201cwill provide parents another means to protect the health and education of their child.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scholarships allow students to transfer to another public school or attend a private school at taxpayer expense. Created in 2018, they\u2019re among several private school voucher programs which have proliferated in the more than 20 years Florida has been under Republican leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rule defines \u201cCovid-19 harassment,\u201d as \u201cthreatening, discriminatory, insulting or dehumanizing verbal, written or physical conduct\u201d that a student could face, \u201cincluding masking requirements, the separation or isolation of students, or Covid-19 testing requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A separate rule released Friday by the Florida Department of Health specifically demands that districts provide an \u201copt-out\u201d for parents so that their students would not have to wear masks in class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DOH rule is designed to blunt the approach taken by Broward, Duval, and Alachua counties, who this week took action intended to require mask-wearing by students when they return to class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis last week pledged that he would block attempts by counties to impose mask requirements. But those defying the governor argue that with Florida no longer under a state of emergency that he allowed lapsing in June, the Florida Constitution gives school boards the power to decide the conditions under which schools operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis, however, appears intent on backing his vow to allow only optional mask-wearing in counties. Under an executive order, the governor signed last week, counties that require masks could face a loss of state funding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students subjected to the \u201charassment\u201d of having to wear masks in class would be eligible to transfer at taxpayer expense into another public or private school under an emergency rule adopted Friday… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[952],"class_list":["post-13935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-harassment"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}