{"id":50352,"date":"2021-09-03T22:30:38","date_gmt":"2021-09-04T02:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=50352"},"modified":"2021-09-03T22:30:46","modified_gmt":"2021-09-04T02:30:46","slug":"floridas-department-of-education-investigating-lee-county-schools-over-mask-mandate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/09\/floridas-department-of-education-investigating-lee-county-schools-over-mask-mandate\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s Department of Education investigating Lee County Schools over mask mandate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Florida\u2019s Department of Education initiated an investigation into The School District of Lee County Friday over its recently implemented mask mandate, which the state claims violate a parent\u2019s right to opt-out. According to a letter obtained from a school district source, DOE threatens to withhold money from the district if it doesn\u2019t act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embedpress-document alignfull embedpress-document-embed ep-doc-embedpress-pdf-1630722390680\" style=\"height:600px;width:600px\"><div style=\"height:600px;width:600px\" class=\"embedpress-embed-document-pdf embedpress-pdf-1630722390680\" data-emid=\"embedpress-pdf-1630722390680\" data-emsrc=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Education-Commissioner-letter-to-Lee-County-Schools-1.pdf\"><\/div><p class=\"embedpress-el-powered\">Powered By EmbedPress<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The letter, sent from state education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, is addressed to both Interim Superintendent Ken Savage and School Board Chair Debbie Jordan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his letter, Corcoran asserts the inability for parents to opt-out of the mask mandate \u2014 unless schools within The School District of Lee County are provided with a doctor\u2019s note \u2014 is non-compliant with a Florida Surgeon General emergency rule adopted by the Florida Department of Health Aug. 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cParents have a fundamental right to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their minor children,\u201d Corcoran wrote in the letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The commissioner said he has initiated an immediate investigation of non-compliance with the ruling by the Florida Surgeon General and has required a written response be provided 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 8 to show the District is adhering to the ruling adopted by the health department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the District does not follow the commissioner\u2019s request, he wrote the education department will be directed to cut off money to the District in an amount equal to the combined salaries of the Lee County School Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is no further information beyond the letter sent by the commissioner at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Florida\u2019s Department of Education initiated an investigation into The School District of Lee County Friday over its recently implemented mask mandate, which the state claims violate a parent\u2019s right to&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":50313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[646],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50354,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50352\/revisions\/50354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}