Some Florida school districts, in defiance of Governor Ron DeSantis’s order barring schools from implementing mask mandates, are requiring young children to cover up.

The news comes from a Politico report which includes a screaming headline of one school board official fretting that “we are literally losing our workforce.”

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DeSantis declared in May, “These kids do not need to be wearing these masks … I’m sorry, they don’t.”

“We need to be able to let them be kids and let them act normally,” he added. “And that’s what should be the case in the fall throughout the school year.”

Some school districts, however, are not so sure and are defying the governor’s plan.

Florida Schools Implementing Their Own Requirements

Politico notes that some Florida school districts “are moving to resist” DeSantis’s order barring schools from implementing mask requirements for kids.

“As controversial as it may be, I absolutely believe this is the right thing to do temporarily until we have a better understanding of the Delta variant and the impact it has on school-aged children,” Rocky Hanna, Leon County school superintendent, told the outlet.

The report notes that districts face a dilemma in either complying with the governor’s order or risk losing funding.

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One school board chair said, “I’d rather them come after our money than we’re putting people in [funeral homes].”

Another school superintendent complained, “We’re running into a situation where we are literally losing our workforce,”

Parents Can Choose

Part of the problem may lie in the media’s dishonest portrayal of DeSantis’s mask order.

Even within the Politico column, it is described as an “anti-mask order.”

It’s not. Instead, DeSantis’s office has explained that masking policy in Florida does, in fact, allow kids to wear masks in schools because they and their parents are given the choice.

It is not to be mandated by school officials.

The governor slammed a reporter earlier this week for suggesting a mask mandate would have helped seven kids who are in the ICU due to COVID.

“You’re blaming the kids, saying they weren’t wearing masks so they’re in the ICU,” DeSantis fired back. “With all due respect, I find that deplorable to blame a victim who ends up being hospitalized.”

DeSantis has consistently rejected lockdowns and government-enforced mandates.

“I think it’s very important that we say unequivocally no to lockdowns, no to school closures, no to restrictions, and no to mandates,” the Florida governor insists.

He added that no American should be “consigned to live in a Faucian dystopia in which we’re governed by the whims of bureaucratic authorities who care little for our freedom, little for our aspirations and little for our happiness.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggested previously that all school children “regardless of vaccination status” continue wearing masks indoors.

There has been little to no scientific evidence that schools have served as super-spreaders for the pandemic thus far.

“There is no indication that areas with mask mandates have performed any better than areas without mask mandates,” a spokesperson for DeSantis has argued.

 

This piece originally appeared in ThePoliticalInsider.com and is used by permission.

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