Will DeSantis call off the anti-mask attack dogs?

At the latest meeting of the Palm Beach County School Board, members would like to talk about anything but masks.

Important topics are on Wednesday’s agenda. The board must discuss highschool readiness and how to get more students reading at grade level.

First, though, comes “Student Protocols due to COVID-19.” They include this: “Students must wear facial coverings unless they are provided an exemption due to a 504/ADA accommodation or when eating/drinking or outside.”

Board members already approved the strictest mask mandate in Florida, but they want to give interim Superintendent Mike Burke flexibility to enact and relax protocols for any infectious disease. The new rules will replace emergency policies that expire after 90 days.

Though board members would not take a formal vote Wednesday, the usual anti-maskers likely will show up. You know, the people who believe that name-calling wins an argument.

Fortunately, they’re losing, even in places that backed Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state’s chief antimasker.

Brevard, Indian River, Lee and Sarasota counties are heavily Republican. All four now have school mask mandates. They join large Democratic-leaning counties, including Broward and Palm Beach.

In Brevard, school board member Misty Belford cast the deciding vote after earlier voting against a mandate. She sees the numbers.

“We have a very serious crisis on our hands,” Belford said. “And I think that we have a very small window of opportunity to do something to break this cycle and get some relief.”

For the week ending Aug. 19, as Florida set another record for COVID-19 cases, the largest number was among children 12 and under. In addition, teenagers had the highest positive test rate of 23.1%, more than four times higher than the accepted level for controlling virus spread.

DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran won’t change their opposition to science. DeSantis pouted last week when Leon County Circuit Court Judge John Cooper ruled that he can’t prohibit school districts from requiring masks. The governor vowed to appeal.

Then on Monday, despite Cooper’s ruling, Corcoran suspended school board salaries in Broward and Alachua counties. DeSantis wanted Corcoran in that role to harass traditional public schools, and the commissioner has not disappointed the governor.

Still, DeSantis could keep misguided mask opposition central to his campaigns for governor and president and look a bit less small. He could ask anti-maskers to make

their case without comparing board members to Nazis or making threats.

“I think it could be helpful,” said Palm Beach County School Board Chairman Frank Barbieri. “People listen to this governor.”

Barbieri became a social media target after the arrest of an antimasker who ignored rules that require speakers to be seated when they aren’t at the podium. As Barbieri noted, the school district’s police department sets those rules — not him.

DeSantis, though, seems not to care what happens to school board members. He’s preoccupied with outperforming Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota. Those are DeSantis’ most likely presidential rivals among anti-science GOP governors.

And like Florida’s record COVID-19 surge that the governor has enabled, we may have passed the point where civility would calm the anti-maskers. Like DeSantis, they ignore facts on COVID-19 and schools.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that “COVID-19 school-related disease incidence” in Florida was highest in “smaller counties, districts without mask requirements and those that reopened earliest after closure in March 2020.”

Translation: Areas that followed DeSantis’ lead put more children and teachers at risk. Belatedly, school board members are reversing themselves and/or setting proper priorities.

“It’s a safety issue,” Barbieri said of masks. “It’s all designed to get kids back in the classroom.”

As the Sun Sentinel reported, most students seem to be the adults in the room, not the protesting parents. Students understand that masks protect themselves and others.

DeSantis and Corcoran claim to support parental freedom. As Republican pollster Whit Ayres told the New York Times , however, “Liberty has never meant the freedom to threaten the health” of others. “That is a perversion of the definition of liberty and freedom.”