{"id":50407,"date":"2021-09-08T14:28:11","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T18:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=50407"},"modified":"2021-09-08T14:28:21","modified_gmt":"2021-09-08T18:28:21","slug":"lee-county-school-board-to-florida-doe-mask-mandates-will-remain-in-lee-county-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/09\/lee-county-school-board-to-florida-doe-mask-mandates-will-remain-in-lee-county-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee County School Board to Florida DOE: Mask mandates will remain in Lee County Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Lee County School Board has told the Florida Department of Education that the county\u2019s school mask mandates will remain in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Chilren-masks-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-50408\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Chilren-masks-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Chilren-masks-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Chilren-masks-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Chilren-masks-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Chilren-masks.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The board members wrote to Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran: \u201cThe SDLC shares the concerns of our governmental leaders and recognizes that we want the best for our students while respecting the rights of all of our parents. The decision made by the SDLC strikes that balance. The face-covering guidelines are necessary, reasonable, and narrowly tailored to address the health crisis in our local community. The guidelines are essential to keeping schools open and operational under exigent circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Leon County judge Wednesday blocked Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 ban on mandatory masks&nbsp;at schools from remaining in effect while he appeals an earlier ruling that struck down his order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Circuit Judge John Cooper approved a request by lawyers for parents suing DeSantis over masks, endorsing their position that keeping the ban in place would create a potential health risk in schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throwing out the automatic stay of his earlier order is unusual, Cooper conceded. But he added, \u201cWe\u2019re not in normal times. We\u2019re in a pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DeSantis had ordered that counties allow parents to have their children simply opt-out of mask requirements. But Cooper ruled that school boards are empowered to mandate that all students wear face-coverings unless they obtain a medical exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embedpress-document embedpress-document-embed ep-doc-embedpress-pdf-1631125619409\" style=\"height:600px;width:600px\"><div style=\"height:600px;width:600px\" class=\"embedpress-embed-document-pdf embedpress-pdf-1631125619409\" data-emid=\"embedpress-pdf-1631125619409\" data-emsrc=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Letter-to-Commissioner-of-Education-Regarding-Face-Coverings.pdf\"><\/div><p class=\"embedpress-el-powered\">Powered By EmbedPress<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Lee County School Board has told the Florida Department of Education that the county\u2019s school mask mandates will remain in place. The board members wrote to Florida Commissioner of&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":50408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[657],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50407"}],"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=50407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50410,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50407\/revisions\/50410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}