Miami-Dade Schools did the right thing on masks. But will DeSantis ever get this thing right? | Editorial

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and the members of the Miami-Dade County School Board, will now face the wrath of Florida’s bully governor, who doesn’t believe in local control.

They might lose their salaries, face financial penalties and, in the worst-case scenario, lose their jobs.

But by standing by the unanimous opinion of medical professionals — including their own medical task force that met Monday — they also stood their ground. Wednesday, the School Board approved, 7-1, a mask mandate for the 2021-22 school year. Board member Lubby Navarro cast the dissenting vote.

The state’s so-called leaders will cast Board members as rogue, defiant. But we call them courageous and responsible.

And sensible. The Board agreed to allow children with certain medical conditions to opt out of the mandate, giving parents of children whose disability might make wearing a mask unfeasible flexibility. To apply for a medical exemption, parents must request a form from their school, then submit it with a doctor’s signature. The district will evaluate the request.

Fortunately, Board members want masks to be a temporary precaution. The school district will reassess local pandemic conditions on a weekly basis and relax its mandate as needed.

“Parents have rights, but there are times when a compelling reason is pronounced where the school boards and the local decision makers must make certain decisions,” Board member Marta Perez said Wednesday.

DeSantis’ assault

In July, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared war on local school districts by signing an executive order against mask mandates; he also has downplayed the recent record-breaking number of cases and hospitalizations and surrounded himself with at least one medical advisor who equates masks with “child abuse.” That means that, while bold, the School Board has a lot to lose politically by voting “my conscience,” as Chair Perla Tabares Hantman said.

This week, the State Board of Education found that the Broward County and Alachua County school districts violated state rules and laws relating to mandates by not offering parents to the opportunity to opt out of sending their kids to school with masks. After the Biden administration said local districts could use federal stimulus money to offset any financial penalties the Florida Legislature might impose on them, the State Board of Education wants to investigate other ways to inflict pain.

Future punishments might entail scrutinizing district expenditures (and we know they will be looking at anything that might make districts look like they’re squandering taxpayer dollars) and, worse, removing local officials who were duly elected by voters, as Board of Education Chair Tom Grady suggested Tuesday. These people are shameless, and their intent shameful.

In-person learning

Of course, masks aren’t the be-all-and-end-all. Vaccines remain the best way to prevent COVID-19, and the school district will implement other safety protocols when classes resume on Aug. 23, including: frequent sanitation; maintaining seating charts in classrooms to make contact tracing easier; 3 feet of distance between student stations and a 10-day quarantine for students exposed to the virus, regardless of whether they test positive.

In the face of the new delta variant that’s driving up pediatric hospitalizations like never seen before, and considering the fact that, for the first time since the pandemic started, schools will return to in-person learning without a hybrid online option, School Board members had two choices: capitulate to a politically motivated order from DeSantis or do everything in their power to keep students, faculty and staff safe.

Board members did what voters put them in office to do: protect students to the best of their ability. Carvalho has also been wisely staunch and consistent with his pledge to follow the experts’ advice, a promise he made time and time again to the Herald’s Editorial Board and to the public — despite threats coming from Tallahassee. You can bet DeSantis and other Republicans have put a target on Carvalho and Board members.

But in choosing a stringent mask mandate, they absolutely did the right thing. And it’s absolutely horrifying that Florida’s governor thinks that what they did was wrong.

This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 6:00 AM.