A legal complaint filed by teacher unions aims to bar the Florida governor from issuing an order for schools to hold in-person classes this coming August.
The complaint was filed by the national union known as The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and its Florida affiliate, the Florida Education Association (FEA), in a proactive effort to obtain an injunction that would block Florida governor Rod DeSantis from issuing a statewide mandate for schools to hold in-person classes.
The legal complaint was filed at the Miami state court last Monday, the same day that the Florida State Health officials released a report that for the sixth day in a row, over 10,000 additional COVID-19 cases has been added to Florida’s rapidly increasing number of people infected by the disease. The additional number brings the average daily number of new cases to roughly about 11,000 per day. In addition, the Monday status report indicated that so far, there has been 5,000 coronavirus-deaths in Florida.
Fedrick Ingram President of FEA said that governor DeSantis needs to accept the reality that the coronavirus is surging out of control in Florida. Mr. Ingram explained that
”If schools are to reopen, it should not start with in-person teaching where students, teachers and school employees will face an explosion of infection cases and sickness; which will eventually force a return to distance learning. —Florida’s Constitution makes safety a critical standard for public schools, which is the same standard being demanded by Florida’s parents and teachers.”
Florida Dept. of Education Says Schools were Merely Given Guidelines
Although the Florida Department of Education accuses the FEA of not fully reading or comprehending the guidelines sent by the department to schools; assering that they were not directives for in-person classes. The emails they sent merely laid out new innovative options in helping parents decide on what works best for the health and safety of their children and family.
However, it was clear from Governor DeSantis’ announcements earlier this month that his mandate for school reopening is for in-person schooling since he stated that “online learning is just not the same.”