Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is not relenting in his battle to stand up for the rights of parents to decide what is best for their children and got a heavy assist Thursday from the Florida Board of Education, which voted unanimously in favor of sanctioning eight school districts with mask mandates that do not give parents the ability to opt-out.
The eight county districts are Alachua, Brevard, Broward, Duval, Leon, Miami-Dade, Orange and Palm Beach, according to the Tampa Bay Times, which reported they “could potentially face funding cutbacks if they do not show that they have complied with the state government’s order.” The counties were given 48 hours to demonstrate they will come into compliance with the state orders before the penalties are imposed.
State Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran, who was reportedly behind the sanctions to offset the impact of any federal reimbursements, said school officials in the eight counties have violated state law by enforcing mask mandates — DeSantis issued an executive order stating that parents must be given an opt-out.
“We will not be strong-armed, nor will we allow others to be,” Corcoran said, according to WWSB. “Should the federal government’s efforts stray even slightly from justice to deter parental rights or lawful speech, they should prepare for a very swift and zealous response.”
Duval Superintendent Diana Greene cited nearly 500 COVID-19 cases within eight days of the school year beginning — there are approximately 130,000 students in the district — and blamed the state.
“The Florida Department of Health’s inability to conduct timely case investigations had a direct impact on the spread of the virus throughout our schools, ultimately jeopardizing the health and safety of students and employees,” Greene said, according to the Times.
Another county on the list defying the governor’s executive order, Palm Beach County, is effectively going to war against school kids by punishing those who do not comply while teachers in the country lag behind the rest of the state in getting vaccinated.
It was in Palm Beach County that a fed-up Florida mother unleashed her fury and wrath at a group of habitually disrespectful, obnoxious school board members.
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who is running to be the Democratic nominee to challenge DeSantis in 2022, claimed Thursday that three school districts requiring masks when schools opened have more than 3.5 times fewer COVID-19 cases per student than districts that did not require masks. Fittingly, the Democrat went on CNN to spread what was later deemed to be “misinformation.”
In a shameless politicization of the issue, she also attacked the governor.
“Ron DeSantis is lying to you about masks in schools,” Fried claimed. “In every single case, kids were better off in school districts that required masks than school districts that did not.”
Turns out, her claims did not hold up to a basic fact check, as DeSantis’ press secretary Christina Pushaw was quick to point out.
If there is a lesson to be learned from today, it’s that ALL journalists should do basic fact-checking of @NikkiFried press releases before regurgitating her misinformation and having to backtrack hours later. Very, very few did the bare minimum.
Activist Progressives. https://t.co/YES9kyVDpw
— Christina Pushaw (@ChristinaPushaw) October 7, 2021
The Florida Department of Health also issued a statement saying Fried “released misinformation regarding school data that lacks epidemiological accuracy and credibility.”
“There is no evidence that schools are high risk locations of spread. A study supported by CDC and completed by the State Epidemiologist, alongside the State Surgeon General and other top experts at the Department of Health, found that fewer than 1% of students had school-related COVID-19,” the department said. “Second, a brief data quality check revealed several calculation errors, which include a critical error in the inaccurate estimate of average cases per capita, which were then used as the basis for their analysis.”
“Additionally, the data set is not complete or representative of the entire state. This results in false interpretation of data. Further review of the data by a qualified epidemiologist should have occurred prior to publication,” the statement added.
Pushaw would also share these tweets to further clarify matters:
Abject nonsense. This school year, there have NEVER been “22 school districts that required masks.”
Does Nikki Fried understand what “parental opt out” means? It means parents can choose whether their kids wear masks or not. Only “medical opt-out” is an illegal mask mandate. https://t.co/ApwGMm3pWe
— Christina Pushaw (@ChristinaPushaw) October 7, 2021
Fun fact: COVID-19 cases have decreased about 96% statewide since school started in Florida.
Rate of decline is the same for mask-optional and forced-masking districts. https://t.co/mSY10rH0vo
— Christina Pushaw (@ChristinaPushaw) October 7, 2021
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The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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