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Top Three Takeaways – October 8th, 2021
- Schooled. That’s what Florida’s school districts offending the state’s law regarding parental opt-outs for school mask mandates were before the Florida Board of Education on Thursday. As was outlined by the Florida Board of Education, Wednesday’s hearing was specifically about whether offending districts Alachua, Brevard, Broward, Duval, Leon, Miami Dade, Orange and Palm Beach Counties were in compliance with state law by virtue of offering parental choice. Instead, superintendent after superintendent decided to attempt to argue that the CDC and their preferred health experts should supersede the Florida Department of Health and Florida Board of Education’s judgement. Even though all of those arguments were irrelevant and had been made clear prior to the statements of the school districts. The issue had already been litigated in the courts and found in favor of the state. Since the onset of this debate, I’ve consistently said it’s remarkable to witness the officials responsible for teaching the laws to our children, to be blatantly violating the law. Yesterday was but the latest determination that these school districts and these superintendents are in denial, they’re not willing or interested in speaking independent of the school boards themselves to represent the law and listening to their arguments – they won’t even address directly the matter at hand. Instead attempting to make legal arguments that have already been settled in the courts. These school districts have been and are violating the law, they continue to undermine the educational interests of our kids and they have been and are...
- Violating your rights. I’ve said it multiple times before and I’ll say it again. If you don’t want your child to wear a mask, don’t have them do it. If anyone attempts to take any action against your child, sue them. If anyone makes physical contact with your child as a result of attempting to enforce the mask mandate press charges. It is clear these lawless school districts believe they control our children. In fact, Broward’s School Superintendent Vickie Cartwright specifically stated that “parent’s rights can be limited” and attempted to make her most compelling case for doing so. Her words were no different in their positioning than what Virginia Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe recently stated at a debate when he said I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach. Miami-Dade School Superintendent Alberto Carvalho made especially interesting comments when he said that the Board of Education rule was oddly allowing one parent to allow for their child to harm another parent’s child. That’s what he thinks of your rights. That you’re weaponizing your kids with the virus to infect other kids. It’s about as outrageous as it gets. But he also stated: (This) Will continue to play out in the courts as well as the court of public opinion. Well, you’ve already lost multiple times in court, but apparently the district’s bent on continuing to waste taxpayer dollars to push on with their unlawful endeavor. And how exactly is that court of public opinion threat to be interpreted? Is that what you’ll be dedicating time attempting to shape? Try this one on for size Mr. Court of public opinion. The next time a resident loses their home because of an inability to afford the outrageously high property taxes paid to the school district, you can explain to them why you’re spending money to lose court cases over this. Carvalho also stated its unfortunate that so much time and so many resources are being used on masks when the issue of addressing the educational needs of our children are so significant due to the pandemic. Well, that’s ironic. Because as I illustrated from the onset of this debate months ago...The science is clear via 13+ studies posted to the National Institutes of Health’s website. Every teacher is less effective teaching with a mask on and every student is less effective learning with a mask on at every educational level. So, save the “educational interest” argument because you’re full of it. You’ve literally been breaking the law to implement a mask policy which provably undermines the educational interests of our kids.
- You were heard. Shout out to the Moms for Liberty who were well represented during the public comment phase of the hearing. In total 24 of the 30 allocated slots for public comments were taken by those in favor of parental rights and the law. We have momentum and we’re making a difference in restoring parental rights to our schools and for replacing school board members and officials who violate the law. As I said yesterday. From the attempted intimidation of Merrick Garland to our unlawful school districts. It’s time to get louder together and work to retake our schools from the teachers' unions who drive the agenda and control our school districts.