MIAMI _ Florida's top teachers' union, joined by local educators _ including one from Miami-Dade County _ sued Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state education commissioner Monday to stop the "reckless and unsafe reopening of schools" this fall amid the state's surging COVID-19 cases.
The Florida Education Association was joined by plaintiffs who are educators in Miami-Dade, Broward and Orange counties in the suit, filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.
The Miami-Dade plaintiff, Mindy Grimes-Festge, is the secretary/treasurer of the United Teachers of Dade. She and her husband, Don, have been educators for 28 years. They have a son, who is a rising high school senior with a compromised immune system and unable to return to school during the pandemic.
The lawsuit has gained traction, with the NAACP joining as a plaintiff in the suit, which names DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran as defendants. Corcoran has ordered the public schools to reopen.
"No one wants to be in back in a classroom and reopen our school buildings more than educators," said FEA president Fedrick Ingram. "We are teachers. That's what we do. That's what we live for. That's what we've given our lives to, to help kids and communities and families. But we want to do it safely. And we don't want to put people at risk.
"We should be preparing our lesson plans, getting ready for school," he continued. "But unfortunately, the reopening of the state of Florida has been reckless."
The FEA hosted a virtual news conference with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association.
"The fact that one has to sue for what Texas did last week, what California did last week, is mind-boggling to me," Weingarten said. She then called on DeSantis to deal with it, "being the governor I know Ron DeSantis can be."
"He is in intense denial," Weingarten said. "This lawsuit is about trying to get the governor, the mayor to actually do their jobs and keep people safe. ... And not pit, or make people make a false choice, between education and safety."
The suit calls for the governor and education commissioner to drop an emergency order issued two weeks ago that called for, according to the lawsuit, "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally forcing millions of public school students and employees to report to unsafe brick and mortar schools that should remain physically closed during the resurgence of COVID-19 in Florida."
The top-down order called on locally controlled school districts to plan to send children back to school for face-to-face learning five days a week. South Florida school superintendents have said they will not reopen brick-and-mortar schools if the area continues to be a hot spot, with thousands of new cases reported daily.
In a statement, Corcoran accused the statewide teachers union of not reading or understanding the Department of Education's guidance, which calls on schools to operate 180 days of the school year.
"This E.O. did not order any new directives regarding the requirements of schools to be open; it simply created new innovative options for families to have the CHOICE to decide what works best for the health and safety of their student and family," he said.
"Additionally, the order created guaranteed funding for districts and schools to educate innovatively, as long as they continue to provide all students, especially at-risk students, with a world-class education, no matter what option they choose. The FEA frequently states that schools are underfunded, and if this frivolous, reckless lawsuit succeeds it will eliminate these funding guarantees _ completely contradicting their normal outcry."
Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said previously that Miami-Dade County Public Schools was in compliance with the executive order, which allowed flexibility _ and funding _ for plans such as Miami-Dade's.
Carvalho recently introduced eight criteria that must be met before schools reopen. United Teachers of Dade president Karla Hernandez-Mats has told teachers to prepare for online instruction.
