Students who oppose masks can get private school scholarships

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida students tin soon usage state-backed vouchers to transportation to backstage schools if they entity to wearing masks successful classrooms, arsenic Gov. Ron DeSantis and authorities acquisition officials reason that decisions astir masks should beryllium near up to parents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At an exigency gathering held by league telephone Friday morning, the State Board of Education approved an exigency regularisation that would grow the state’s Hope Scholarship voucher programme to let students who don’t privation to deterioration masks to transportation to backstage schools. The Hope Scholarship programme was primitively intended to connection vouchers to students who person been the victims of specified things arsenic bullying.

The regularisation does into effect immediately.

The gathering is portion of a rule-making process triggered by a DeSantis enforcement bid designed to forestall schoolhouse districts from requiring that students deterioration masks. DeSantis has argued that parents should person the close to determine whether their children deterioration masks.

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A announcement of the gathering posted successful Thursday’s Florida Administrative Register said the committee volition measurement whether to alteration the Hope Scholarship programme to supply parents “with a mechanics to transportation a kid to a backstage schoolhouse oregon different schoolhouse territory nether a Hope Scholarship erstwhile a schoolhouse district’s COVID-19 wellness protocols, including masking, airs a wellness oregon acquisition information to their child.”

The Hope Scholarship was established successful 2018 and was championed by then-House Speaker Richard Corcoran, a Republican who present serves arsenic acquisition commissioner. It has been under-utilized since its launch, serving 388 students during the 2019-2020 schoolhouse year, according to a Florida House investigation published successful February.

Step Up for Students, a nonprofit enactment that helps administer Hope Scholarship vouchers, said Thursday that it was not progressive successful the projected rule.

“This is simply a connection from the Board of Education, not thing Step Up For Students has proposed, but arsenic ever we volition faithfully transportation retired authorities directives,” Scott Kent, the organization’s adjunct manager of strategical communications, told The News Service of Florida successful an email.

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DeSantis’ enforcement order, issued past week, threatened backing for schoolhouse districts that enforce disguise mandates. But immoderate districts are nevertheless moving up with efforts to necessitate masks for students successful immoderate oregon each people levels with the world twelvemonth acceptable to statesman adjacent week.

During a property lawsuit past week successful Cape Coral, DeSantis was asked if “harm” to students from mask-wearing would suffice them to person vouchers done the Hope Scholarship program.

The politician said helium would “have to look astatine that” and took the accidental to again onslaught forced masking policies.

“One of the things that’s truthful frustrating astir this full acquisition is, immoderate of the radical that are advocating for mitigation measures and mandates and stuff, they ne'er admit the harms of what comes with that,” DeSantis said astatine the media event.

Heading into the 2021 legislative session, Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, floated a akin thought of creating a voucher programme specifically aimed astatine letting parents flight schoolhouse disguise mandates. But Gruters, who is besides president of the authorities Republican Party, yet did not record a measure that would’ve created the “Face Freedom Scholarship.”

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Democrats person bashed DeSantis’ efforts to forestall schoolhouse districts from requiring masks arsenic the authorities grapples with a spike successful COVID-19 cases caused by the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus. State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, criticized the voucher connection Thursday.

“The region this authorities volition spell to not lone defund nationalist acquisition but to fulfill a politically motivated docket astir masks. If they moved this accelerated connected homelessness ideate wherever we would beryllium close now,” Eskamani said successful a tweet.

The authorities committee connected Friday besides volition see different exigency regularisation dealing with procedures for erstwhile students indispensable quarantine due to the fact that of COVID-19 diagnoses.

Titled “Pupil Attendance Records,” the projected regularisation is intended to “provide criteria to debar learning nonaccomplishment and see a pupil successful attendance, erstwhile nether a ‘stay-home’ directive owed to COVID-19.”

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