FLORIDA TOUTS ‘surgical’ plan for school safety.
‘Surgical’ approach touted for districts’ infection concerns
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is opening schools during the coronavirus pandemic and keeping them open using a “surgical” approach when cases of the disease are diagnosed.
On a phone call with school district superintendents late last week, Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran told them not to close a school without calling state officials first to discuss it.
“Before you get to that point of closing a classroom or closing a school, we want to have that communication with you because we want to be as surgical as possible,” Corcoran said, and offered to provide specific names and numbers of officials who could take a call.
There is no reason, he said, to automatically close a school just because a student displays symptoms of the virus but has not been diagnosed. The goals of a “surgical” approach are to keep “everybody safe” and allow students to “get the best possible learning experience and the best possible emotional and social support,” he said.
The board of directors of the Florida High School Athletic Association voted last week to allow schools to start fall sports on Monday — a decision that ignores a recommendation from the organization’s own medical advisory panel, which had called for delaying fall sports until at least the end of September.
Meanwhile, state officials and the Florida teachers union are holding mediation efforts Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by the teachers union over DeSantis’ demand that schools open in a state that has high coronavirus rates by Aug. 31 or risk losing state funding.
The union is seeking a temporary injunction on the order, saying that it is unconstitutional. DeSantis’ administration already has threatened to withhold nearly $200 million from Hillsborough County, which had planned to start with all-virtual learning but now is opening buildings to keep its funding.
Circuit Judge Charles Dodson on Friday had denied the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit and urged the sides to mediate a resolution. If no agreement is reached, a court hearing will begin today.
Separately, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has signed into law sweeping protections for businesses, schools and nursing homes against coronavirus lawsuits.
Lee on Monday touted the legislation as “historic” and argued that the law would protect businesses from “frivolous lawsuits.”
Lee has since maintained he will not shut down the economy and has resisted calls for a statewide mask mandate.
So far, 34 states and Washington, D.C., have adopted mask requirements. Now, mask advocates want police to enforce those orders, a move some police chiefs have said they are reluctant to make.
They are seeking legal protection for retail workers put in the position of enforcing mask rules. And they are lobbying for a coordinated federal mask policy.
The battle over masks, like earlier face-offs over requiring seat-belt use in cars or banning smoking in public places, pits defenders of science against defenders of personal liberty.
Meanwhile, educational disruptions forced by the pandemic are hurting teenagers at a time when many families also are struggling with layoffs and child care for young kids — challenges that are expected to persist as a new school year gets underway, largely with remote learning.
Some teens have to share computers with siblings or sign in to classes in crowded households or from their cars. Others have been laid off from after-school jobs that help provide for their families or work extra hours in essential industries, leaving less time for school.
Students whose parents can’t work from home also have less structure to push them to get their work done.
“They’re at home being their own teachers,” said Nick Mathern, vice president of K-12 Partnerships for the nonprofit Achieving the Dream. The coronavirus crisis could widen the gap between kids with wealthier, college-educated parents and their lower-income peers, Mathern said.
A recent report from Measure of America, a project of the New York nonprofit Social Science Research Council, says the number of people ages 16-24 who are disconnected from both work and school could spike to almost 1 in 4, erasing a decade of gains and hitting levels higher than during the last recession.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump noted Monday that other countries have had recent rises. “You’ve seen what’s going on in New Zealand?” Trump said of the island nation, which went months without any new virus cases. “Big surge in New Zealand. It’s terrible. We don’t want that.”
New Zealand has seen the virus return this month — but on Monday, it recorded nine new cases. On Tuesday, 13 more were reported.