Miami school district tells state it’s standing by mask mandate despite funding threats
Miami-Dade public schools officials told the Florida Department of Education in a letter Wednesday that the DeSantis administration is violating the state constitution by trying to prevent the district from carrying on with its mask mandate for students and staff in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The school district was responding to Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran’s demand Friday that it document its rationale for its mask protocol by the middle of this week. The district’s response was due by 5 p.m. Wednesday.
In its letter, signed by Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and School Board Chair Perla Tabares Hantman, the district maintained it was within its right to mandate mask wearing as a means to protect students, faculty and staff amid a surging coronavirus pandemic.
Further, it said the Florida Department of Education was violating the Parents’ Bill of Rights, the new Florida law signed by DeSantis in July, by trying to stop individual districts from implementing their own requirements for facial coverings.
“It is clear that the School Board has a compelling state interest in controlling a deadly communicable disease, like COVID-19,” Carvalho and Tabares Hantman wrote. “Accordingly, the School Board relied on the advice of medical and public health experts and exercised its duty to protect the lives and health of students and employees through the least restrictive means possible.”
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Corcoran cited the Parents’ Bill of Rights, an emergency rule by the Department of Health barring districts from imposing mask mandates and DeSantis’ executive order giving parents a choice of opting out of the mask mandate as reasons why the state would withhold funds in districts that voted for mask mandates.
On Monday, Corcoran announced he had begun withholding state funds from the Broward and Alachua county school districts, which were the two districts that had first defied the health department’s emergency rule.
But on Friday, Leon County Judge John Cooper ruled DeSantis and his administration acted “without legal authority” when banning mask mandates in schools. The judge said they had overlooked a critical paragraph in the law, which states that a school district can make an exception to parental rights when a requirement “is reasonable and necessary to achieve a compelling state interest.”
On Wednesday, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican ally of DeSantis, wrote in a legal opinion that school districts must comply with the state rule letting parents opt out of masks for their children “unless and until the judiciary declares them invalid.”
As of Wednesday evening, the judge’s ruling had not yet been filed as it was delivered orally, which gave Moody and the DeSantis administration a toehold to act. After her ruling was published, the state Department of Education said Moody’s opinion proves that districts need to follow state orders.
Charles Gallagher, the lead attorney for the parents who sued the state in the mask mandate case, said both parties have the transcript of Cooper’s ruling and thus the state “cannot claim confusion” and defy the court order.
Broward interim Superintendent Vicki Cartwright released a statement on Monday saying the district and School Board remain steadfast in their decision to require masks, and that the mandate would be revisited next week.
“The health and safety of our students, teachers and staff continue to be our main priorities. As such, BCPS will continue to mandate masks, knowing the data shows they help minimize the spread of COVID-19 in our schools,” Cartwight said.
The district had filed a response to the state detailing its objections last week.
The Miami-Dade School Board voted 7-1 on Aug. 18 to mandate masks for the upcoming academic year. Only students with a Florida-certified physician’s letter can be considered for opting out of the protocol. The mandate is temporary and will be revisited weekly to determine its justification based on COVID transmission rates in the county.
Carvalho has said repeatedly that the state withholding his salary is a risk he is willing to take since he believes the mask mandate is an important part of the district’s strategy to reduce the spread of COVID in schools. Eleven of the state’s 67 school districts have imposed mask mandates, with a documented medical condition and signed doctor’s note as the only way to get around them.
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to questions submitted by the Miami Herald asking for a response to the letter and if the agency would begin withholding funds from Miami-Dade Public Schools.
Transmission rates of the more contagious delta variant of the COVID-19 virus shot up throughout South Florida this summer, straining local hospitals and leading to higher case counts and deaths. Numbers Florida reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week show some encouraging signs hospitalizations may be beginning to come down.
According to Miami-Dade public school’s online dashboard tracking COVID infections within the district, as of Wednesday, 72 students and 148 staff members have contracted the virus since the academic year began Aug. 23.
Carvalho said last week that very few students or parents have complained about the mask policy and compliance was not a significant issue.
Lawsuit filed over mask mandate
So far, at least one family has sued the district over the protocol. Javier and Legme Lima Montes filed a lawsuit on Aug. 28 seeking to be able to send their two children, whom their attorney Jason Trauth said are ages 7 and under, to school without a mask.
Both students went to their school on opening day, Aug. 23, and were told they could not attend class with their peers unless they wore masks. One student agreed to go to the schools media center that day, and the sibling went home.
Officials at the school, which Trauth declined to name, said the same accommodation would not be available moving forward, and the only way the children would be allowed back in class would be if they wore facial coverings.
The lawsuit seeks to have the court find Miami-Dade’s mask mandate “unconstitutional and invalid.” Trauth told the Miami Herald Wednesday that more parents have expressed interest in joining the legal action.
“I think this is a bigger issue than the superintendent may think,” Trauth said.
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau reporter Ana Ceballos contributed to this report
This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 8:37 PM.
