Broward Schools must stand firm on masks

The Broward County School Board must stand firm at an emergency meeting Tuesday and require masks for students, employees and visitors to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and its vicious variants.

This is the right decision. It’s also vital that these elected officials know how strongly the public is behind them as they are being unfairly browbeaten by Gov. Ron DeSantis and threatened with a loss of money to run schools during a dire emergency. The state budget includes $2 billion — with a B — to operate Broward schools next year. The bullying by the governor must end right here, right now, in Broward.

New cases of COVID-19 are surging to alarmingly high levels across Florida, especially among the young and unvaccinated. The school year in Broward begins in just over a week, Aug. 18. After so much pandemic-induced disruption last school year, students are understandably eager to return to their classrooms and friends. But it must be done safely.

Broward is the nation’s sixth-largest school district with more than 260,000 students and a school population that’s among the most diverse in the country. As School Board chairman Dr. Rosalind Osgood asks: “How can I put 60 kids on a bus not wearing masks? That would be unconscionable.”

Parents across the county are pleading with School Board members to make masks mandatory.

“I hope the School Board will put our kids’ and teachers’ safety first by continuing to follow the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics and require face masks for all students, regardless of vaccination status,” wrote Heather Guenot, the mother of both an elementary student and a middle schooler. “All elementary schoolers are too young to be vaccinated as well as many middle schoolers. The science shows that wearing masks does effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19, and it would be heartbreaking to send our kids to school in person only to have them or their classmates catch COVID and need to quarantine and risk serious illness when a simple step could prevent much of the spread.”

Another reason the school board should insist on a mask mandate is that it will send a forceful message to DeSantis, who continues on a life-threatening rampage across the state, ignoring science, ridiculing medical experts and putting his presidential ambitions before public health. As POLITICO reports, Florida Republicans plan to use education issues in nonpartisan school board elections to mobilize voters in 2022.

DeSantis long ago surrendered the moral high ground on this critical life-and-death issue.

He stopped providing daily updates on cases, hospitalizations and deaths, depriving Americans of critical information. He refuses to hold productive public dialogues with local officials. He issued an order threatening to withhold funds from school districts that require masks, an action that was outrageous and possibly illegal.

The state Department of Health passed an emergency rule Friday that requires school districts to let parents opt out of mask requirements and provides Hope Scholarship vouchers to parents who don’t want their kids wearing masks. After perfunctory online hearings with 15 minutes of hurried public testimony, the state unanimously adopted the rules, which also define masking requirements as a form of “COVID-19 harassment.”

Emergency rules are supposed to be reserved for real emergencies, such as imminent danger to the public health. In addition, state law prohibits imposing penalties for violating rules — unless the Legislature says so, which it hasn’t, as Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse Point, noted in a letter to Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran. Someone, somewhere, needs to step up and rein in this runaway bureaucracy.

At least four other Florida districts are pursuing mask mandates. They are Alachua, Gadsden, Leon and Duval, where board members are giving parents the right to opt out of the requirement.

A lot more leaders in Florida need to challenge DeSantis’ intimidating ways. The governor needs to be on mask safety.

Call or email your school board members and tell them you support masks for students, employees and visitors. Here’s the contact information for them.

Chair Dr. Rosalind Osgood, District

5: 754-321-2005, dr.rosalind.osgood@ browardschools.com

Vice Chair Laurie Rich Levinson, District 6: 754-321-2006, laurie.richlevinson@browardschools.com

Donna Korn, Countywide At-Large Seat

8: 754-321-2008, donna.korn@browardschools.com

Debra Hixon, Countywide At-Large Seat

9: 754-321-2009, debra.hixon@browardschools.com

Ann Murray, District 1: 754-321-2001, ann.murray@browardschools.com

Patricia Good, District 2: 754-321-2002, patricia.good@browardschools.com

Sarah Leonardi, District 3: 754-321-2003, sarah.leonardi@browardschools.com

Lori Alhadeff, District 4: 754-321-2004, lorialhadeff@browardschools.com

Nora Rupert, District 7: 754-321-2007, nora.rupert@browardschools.com

If you vote in Broward, you chose these nine people to run schools, not DeSantis. He got less than 32% of the vote in Broward in the 2018 election. He’s governor, not an emperor. School board members are accountable to local voters. Let them decide how to keep our schools safe.