FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Palm Beach County School District joined Broward and Miami-Dade in defying Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ban against mask mandates.
School board members, after hours Wednesday of heated public comments from residents vehemently opposed to a mask mandate, voted 6-1 to require all students and staff wear masks on school grounds starting Monday.
The mandate will be in place for 90 days, and the policy will allow for some medical exemptions. The school district previously allowed students to opt out if their parent signed a note.
With new COVID cases continuing to break records, the delta variant spreading more rapidly than previous strains of the virus and younger people getting sick, school board members decided they couldn’t hold back on a mandate any longer.
As of Wednesday, there were 846 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Palm Beach County schools, with 734 students and 112 employees. More than 1,700 students had been told to stay home as of Wednesday, Interim Superintendent Michael Burke said at the meeting. The school year started Aug. 10.
Board member Karen Brill said the board needed to make the decision to require masks in light of the fact that the vast majority of students in the county have opted to wear masks. Only about 5% to 6% of students in the district have opted to go without masks, Brill said.
As of Friday, at least 8,518 students out of the 179,000 in the district opted not to wear masks, the district told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
“I could not look myself in the mirror any longer and say that I am doing everything I can to make my schools safe,” Brill told the board. “I will not let myself be driven by 5 to 6% of the families.”
The board acknowledged that principals and school officials, already overwhelmed over controlling COVID in schools, will face additional challenges now in enforcing the mandate and disciplining students who don’t comply.
Board member Barbara McQuinn, the lone dissenting vote, told the board Wednesday that out of the hundreds of emails they’ve received from parents, the majority are in favor of a mask mandate.
School started Wednesday in Broward County, where the board decided to require masks in defiance of Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Board of Education.
The state board found Tuesday that the Broward district was in violation of a state rule that allows parents to opt their children out of masks. The state has threatened to strip money from the district and remove School Board members from office.
On Wednesday, the Miami-Dade school board decided to mandate students and teachers wear facial coverings when school starts Monday.
____
(Information from Sun Sentinel staff writers Scott Travis and Brooke Baitinger was used in this report.)
____
