Courts should side with teachers in reopening schools

Florida’s teachers refused to take it any more.

After demands from Tallahassee to reopen public school campuses five days a week in the world’s COVID-19 hotspot, the Florida Education Association sued. The litigation should not have been necessary.

Ideally, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran would have let local school districts decide how and when classes would resume. DeSantis and Corcoran would have told districts to be guided by the science and the data in their area.

Early this month, however, DeSantis suddenly called for all campuses to be open five days a week. Corcoran followed quickly with an order that “all school boards and charter school governing boards must (emphasis ours) open brick and mortar schools at least five days per week for all students...” Their actions came just after President Trump demanded that schools reopen fully nationwide.

The lawsuit asks a judge to declare Corcoran’s order unconstitutional because Florida requires that schools be “safe and secure.” It also calls the order arbitrary and capricious. The lawsuit notes that on May 28, the Department of Education — which Corcoran runs — called school reopenings “locally driven decisions.”

Indeed, districts are making their own decisions. They vary greatly across Florida.

Broward County schools will open as scheduled on Aug. 19, but only with distance learning. All of the county’s COVID-19 numbers are trending badly in the wrong direction.

Palm Beach County also will start with virtual classes only and will delay the start of school until Aug. 31. Numbers are less bad than in Broward, but COVID-19 conditions remain far short of containment. MiamiDade, the epicenter, will decide in the next two weeks.

Elsewhere, some districts may delay reopenings into September. Though parents are divided about their children returning to classrooms, most teachers favor online learning until the surge eases.

Confusion and hostility from Republicans in Tallahassee and Washington have compounded these already difficult decisions. The politics of mask wearing have become the politics of school reopening.

The Florida Department of Education tried to claim that Corcoran’s order wasn’t really an order. But the July 6 document is titled “Emergency Order,” and it ties state money to compliance. The department must approve all reopening plans, which are due July 31.

Similarly, DeSantis has vacillated. After his dictate to open classrooms, DeSantis asked Corcoran to offer “flexibility.” On Wednesday, however, he again pushed for in-classroom learning, saying, “Fear doesn’t help stop the virus.”

Then there’s the Trump administration. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, “Science should not stand in the way” of full reopening. Then she said, “The science is on our side.”

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wouldn’t say whether President Trump had authority to withhold federal money from districts that didn’t reopen fully or whether he actually would back up that threat. Unfortunately, that wasn’t DeVos’ worst moment.

Last week, DeVos told a conservative radio host that children are “actually stoppers of (the virus) and they don’t get it and transmit it themselves, so we should be in a posture of — the default should be getting back to school kids in person, in the classroom.”

In fact, studies in New York, Israel and South Korea debunk DeVos’ statement. Though the virus generally affects children less than seniors, the Kaiser Family Foundation notes that about 3.3 million Americans over 65 share a household with a school-age child.

That’s the flaw in the argument from DeSantis, Corcoran and Trump. To have children in classrooms, there must be teachers and many other staff members, from janitors to bus drivers. Without extensive, expensive safety measures, all those adults could be at high risk.

One plaintiff in the Florida case is Stefanie Beth Miller, a second-grade teacher at Fox Trail Elementary in Davie. She needed a trial drug to stay alive after contracting COVID-19. Miller spent 21 days in a medically induced coma and obviously has a compromised immune system.

Teachers know far better than Trump, DeSantis and Corcoran what students lose when not in the classroom. They understand that parents need to work. But Trump and DeSantis failed to contain the virus, which is necessary for a return to classrooms and economic health.

For them now to threaten schools is beyond hypocritical. We believe they want schools to open to falsely portray a nation — and the largest swing state — as moving past the virus. Yet even before Trump canceled it Thursday, Republican sheriffs in Northeast Florida had said there was no safe way even to hold next month’s portion of the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville.

DeSantis deserves further criticism for silencing public health officials. Surgeon General/Florida Department of Health Director Scott Rivkees, who reports to the governor, ordered local health officials to stay out of school reopening decisions. Yet Corcoran’s order ties reopening to “advice and orders” of local health officials.

As the lawsuit points out, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted in May that in-person classes represent the highest COVID-19 risk. Since then, Florida’s per capita case number is roughly 40 percent higher and the positive test rate is six times higher. On Thursday, the state set a single-day record for COVID-19 deaths.

The Florida Department of Education guidelines presume that schools must reopen “safely.” DeSantis and Corcoran’s response to the lawsuit should be to change their attitude.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Dan Sweeney, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.