{"id":50502,"date":"2021-09-13T20:00:59","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T00:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=50502"},"modified":"2021-09-13T22:19:22","modified_gmt":"2021-09-14T02:19:22","slug":"lee-county-schools-plans-to-add-opt-out-back-into-the-mask-mandate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/09\/lee-county-schools-plans-to-add-opt-out-back-into-the-mask-mandate\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee County Schools plans to add opt-out back into the mask mandate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Breaking news:\u00a0The School District of Lee County plans to return the parent\/student mask opt-out as an option to the current school mask mandate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Superintendent told the school employees, they will still be required to wear masks through the end of the month when masks will be up for discussion again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 order, schools are banned from mandating masks, but a group of parents is suing the state to allow mandates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The case is tied up in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While it\u2019s tied up, one state lawmaker is threatening to fire the superintendent of the Lee County school district for not complying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>State Rep. Spencer Roach (Fla-R) sent a pointed message to Interim Superintendent Kenneth Savage Friday, saying reverse the mask mandate by the end of Friday or else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-embed wp-block-embed-embed\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"Q7setXZTGF\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/09\/state-representative-spencer-roach-letter-to-lee-county-school-superintendent\/\">State Representative Spencer Roach letter to Lee County School Superintendent<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;State Representative Spencer Roach letter to Lee County School Superintendent&#8221; &#8212; \" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/09\/state-representative-spencer-roach-letter-to-lee-county-school-superintendent\/embed\/#?secret=Q7setXZTGF\" data-secret=\"Q7setXZTGF\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI put in the letter basically demand and the time period and hope and expect them to comply with that and follow along with Florida,\u201d said Roach, a republican. \u201cIf they don\u2019t, I\u2019ll ask the education commissioner and governor to use executive powers to suspend or terminate the employment of Superintendent Ken Savage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Savage has not responded to Lehigh Acres Gazette about what he plans to do over Roach\u2019s request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another State Rep. Anthony&nbsp;Sabatini wants Gov. DeSantis to remove all the \u201cLawless School Board Members.\u201d In a letter, he wrote to the Governor on Sept 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-embed wp-block-embed-embed\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"Y9blZ72svu\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/09\/another-florida-house-rep-getting-in-the-middle-of-the-school-mask-issue\/\">Another Florida House Rep getting in the middle of the School Mask issue<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Another Florida House Rep getting in the middle of the School Mask issue&#8221; &#8212; \" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/09\/another-florida-house-rep-getting-in-the-middle-of-the-school-mask-issue\/embed\/#?secret=Y9blZ72svu\" data-secret=\"Y9blZ72svu\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Update:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FULL TEXT OF SUPERINTENDENT SAVAGE&#8217;S LETTER TO PARENTS<br>&#8220;Dear School Community,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My priority has always been to make our community safer during an unprecedented local surge of COVID-19 cases, while still allowing for in-person education for the vast majority of our students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the last few weeks, we have been closely monitoring the matter of&nbsp;McCarthy on behalf of Scott, et al. v. DeSantis, et al, 2021-CA-1382&nbsp;as it has made its way through the Leon County Circuit Court, and now to the 1st District Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Circuit Court judge ruled that the state could not enforce a ban on mask mandates. That ruling, coupled with a high COVID-19 positivity rate in our community, the high demand on our healthcare system, and the number of classroom closures (92) since the beginning of the year, led us to enforce a mask requirement that began on September 1st. Parents could opt their students out of the requirement with a medical exemption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, last Friday, the 1st District Court of Appeal instituted a stay, which means the Florida Department of Education can continue to enforce its interpretation of the parental opt-out until this matter is ultimately resolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Therefore, starting on Tuesday, September 14, The School District of Lee County will require face coverings, while allowing parents to opt-out without a medical exemption. This applies while being indoors on school campuses, indoors at school-sponsored activities, and on school busses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the stay only applies to students, District employees will still be required to wear masks and follow the medical exemption process as set forth through Human Resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I will always be an advocate for parents\u2019 rights. I am especially considerate of those parents who want the right to send their child to school and not have to choose between the safety of their household and their child receiving an in-person, quality public education. I also can\u2019t help but think of the rights of parents whose children lay isolated in the ICU at Golisano Children\u2019s Hospital whose only desire is for their child to be able to survive this terrible ordeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Given the legal landscape, I am appealing to your humanity and sense of community. With approximately 500 COVID-19 patients isolated within our local hospital system, and a 101% staffed bed capacity over the weekend, remember that these aren\u2019t just numbers. These are people. These are your neighbors, your family, your friends, your co-workers. I choose to believe that the vast majority of our community are reasonable, caring people who want this surge to end as quickly as possible and would willingly volunteer to wear masks as an additional measure to protect each other from harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our students have demonstrated great resilience during this entire pandemic. They just want to go to school, engage with their classmates and have some semblance of normalcy restored as soon as this tragic experience subsides. The vast majority of parents and staff want the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I implore you to prove your commitment to each other by getting vaccinated, wearing a mask, and following other safety protocols to help us get through this surge together. I will never underestimate our community\u2019s ability to show love and compassion for each other.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Breaking news:\u00a0The School District of Lee County plans to return the parent\/student mask opt-out as an option to the current school mask mandate. Superintendent told the school employees, they will&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":[685],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50502"}],"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=50502"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50508,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50502\/revisions\/50508"}],"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=50502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}