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Palm Beach County School Board maintains mask mandate position

The Palm Beach County School Board schools will maintain their position on masks in classrooms. As reported by WPTV, the school board plans on discussing whether to file legal charges against Gov. Ron DeSantis this Wednesday.

This decision comes after the school board voted to make face masks mandatory for K-12 students in school buildings and on school transportation. School Board Chairman Frank Barbieri expects to hear from the Florida Department of Education soon about their position.

“I believe we should challenge the executive order. Not that I personally want to defy the governor. It’s not a case of that at all. It’s just that we seem to be on different pages as to how to best protect the children and staff in our school district,” says Barbieri.

One month ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an emergency directive that allowed parents to decide whether their children wear masks in schools. However, many schools and at least seven different school districts have mandated masks in schools. 

The Florida Department of Education issued warning letters to Broward and other counties last Friday. The school districts that received a letter had 48 hours to comply with the governor’s executive order or have the salaries of some board members cut.

Broward County and Alachua County have refused to comply with the governor’s emergency directive. 

“We anticipate that we will get the same type of letter that Broward and Alachua received. I’m hoping that at some point [DeSantis] recognizes that we have a serious concern here because the pandemic has escalated. And since he has taken away any of our opportunities to do any kind of teaching the children at home, we really have no choice but to make the schools absolutely as positively safe as possible to keep the kids in our classrooms,” says Barbieri.

According to the School District of Palm Beach County, there have been 1,775 confirmed cases of Covid-19 since the return to classes. This includes 1,556 infected students and 219 infected employees. Since Monday, 4,384 students have been asked to stay home because of potential exposure to Covid-19. 

The Palm Beach County School Board expects to meet this Wednesday at 2 p.m. to discuss the current Covid-19 citation. The board also plans to discuss medical exceptions for mask mandates and eliminating recorded comments during board meetings.

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