The Florida Department of Education has withheld monthly salaries of school board members in Alachua and Broward counties as punishment for mandatory mask policies that defy the governor’s order against them, the agency announced Monday.
The move came despite a Friday court ruling that said the state could not stop school districts from issuing mask mandates.
“We’re going to fight to protect parent’s rights to make health care decisions for their children,” Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said in a news release. “They know what is best for their children.
“What’s unacceptable is the politicians who have raised their right hands and pledged, under oath, to uphold the Constitution but are not doing so. Simply said, elected officials cannot pick and choose what laws they want to follow.”
Before schools opened this month amid a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases, Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered that school districts could not require children to wear masks in schools.
DeSantis has maintained that school districts should leave it up to parents to decide whether their children wear masks in classrooms.
The Florida Department of Health later passed a rule that said districts that made such a requirement must give parents the ability to opt-out of it.
School districts in Alachua and Broward counties defied DeSantis and the Department of Health, requiring all students to wear masks unless they could present medical reasons for not doing so.
Ahead of that meeting of the Lee County School board, Superintendent Ken Savage enacted the mandate to require masks for all students and teachers with no opt-out, determining that a board vote was not applicable in this situation, similar to the previous school year.