Schools in Leon County, home of the Tallahassee capital, will become another Florida school district to establish a mask warrant for students not to give parents a chance not to participate, receiving an order from the governor. Ron DeSantis
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Rocky Hanna, superintendent of Leon County schools, announced Sunday in a video on Facebook that the district will require masks for pre-K students through eighth grade starting Monday.
“I am aware that I am the first elected superintendent elected to take these measures. I am also aware, fully aware, of the consequences I may suffer, ”he said.
“Governor, I have an obligation to comply with the laws of the state of Florida,” he added in a direct message to DeSantis. “I have, however, a greater obligation to protect the health, safety and welfare of the children of Tallahassee and Leon County.”
Initially, Hanna said she had written to the DeSantis office a week before students returned to class earlier this month to ask for more “flexibility” in the governor’s order to allow parents to opt for their children from not having to wear facial coating in schools.
“Local hospitalizations during the first week of August began to increase and some of our children began to get sick from the delta variant of the COVID-19 virus,” he said.
Hanna said she wanted more leeway to temporarily require masks for “5- to 11-year-olds in our elementary and middle schools,” and called them “more vulnerable because they are not yet eligible for vaccination.”
But Hanna said she never got a response. Two days before school started, he announced that the district would require masks with a medical exemption option.
That same day, Hanna said she “received a very harsh and threatening letter” from Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, saying the new policy violated state law and that if the district moved forward, Hanna and “members of the school council of the county of Leon would be retained in infraction and they face the maximum sanctions established by the law ”.
The Hill has contacted the DeSantis and Corcoran offices for comment.
As a result, Hanna said he and the board decided to open the school with a K-12 mask policy that included medical exemption, but also an “exclusion of individual liberties for parents who claimed that the fact of wearing masks was a violation of their parental rights. ”
However, Hanna said he and school officials agreed they would be “very strict in monitoring” infections and would seek legal advice to find options if they believed they needed to make new policy changes. of masks.
Hanna said the district ended up taking a policy approach on Sunday after registering more than 245 positive cases in the seven days students have been in school, which she said accounted for nearly one-third of the total we had. from the last year. ”
“I am a total supporter of individual rights and freedoms and the rights of parents; however, I firmly believe that my rights end when they infringe on the rights of others, “he said.” It has also been well documented by the vast majority of health experts that these masks not only protect the person wearing the mask; more importantly, they protect the child next door and, for me, your rights end when that child’s rights are violated. ”
Hanna asked DeSantis to reconsider her position on masks in schools and to “return local control to school districts to do what is best for the children in our community … just as you fight to protect the sovereignty of the state of Florida “.
“We simply ask you to have the same consideration for us. Leaders should never allow pride or politics to entangle their best judgment, ”he added.
Hanna’s move comes days after the Florida Board of Education warned two other school districts that they could lose funding if they disobeyed DeSantis ’orders.