Florida Schools Stand Up Ron DeSantis By Defying His Ban On Mask Mandates

A legal showdown could be headed to the state of Florida, with more and more school districts and counties saying that they are going to mandate face coverings for children heading back to school next week. One county, Broward, has already backed off their mandate after a threat from Republican governor Ron DeSantis, but more districts are stepping up to challenge the governor's power as they attempt to keep their students safe. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Florida schools are starting to reopen next week with students returning to classes and across the state school districts are beginning to defy governor Ron DeSantis' executive order saying that you cannot have a mask mandate in place and schools if you put one in place, I'm going to strip you of your funding. Now, previously, we had reported on two school districts, one in Orange county, and one in Broward county that had put mask mandates in place. Following DeSantis' executive order banning these mask mandates, Broward county said, okay, hey, we're not putting a mask mandate in place. Sorry, kids you're going to school without masks. But then something amazing happened. After the order came out and after the threats came out of defunding more and more school districts in more and more counties across the state said, you know what, Ronnie, we're putting a mask mandate in place. Alachua county, which includes state Capitol of Tallahassee not Alachua, excuse me, that's Leon county put a mask mandate in place, Alachua county more and more are currently taking up the issue it's being debated by school boards ahead of next week school starts.

In fact, the school district that I live in right now, they're actually having a meeting today to determine whether or not are we going to defy the governor's order or are we not? But the fact that they're even talking about it, especially in a deep red Republican controlled district, like the one I am in, the fact that they're even considering it shows that they are not afraid to a degree of Ron DeSantis and his threats. And here's why. You have teachers, school districts, school boards, principals, administration, begging the state to do something about this. Not just because they want to protect their children, but because as a couple teacher or excuse me, as a couple principals have explained, their staffs are dying. Literally losing our workforce is the way one administrator put it, either because they're dying from COVID, they're currently hospitalized with COVID or they've tested positive for COVID. One school, I think had had many, as many as 13 teachers test positive. So they can't even be there for pre-planning and the start of school. There's a shortage now. We're running out of people these administrators are telling the governor.

And you're threatening to strip us of our funding if we try to not just protect the students, but protect the kids. I do have to tell this little personal anecdote here, because I obviously have school-aged children. Yesterday, Thursday was the meet and greet. You take the kids in, you know, they drop off their supplies. You meet the teachers, see where the classes are or whatever. For my youngest son's class, there were four people there wearing masks. One of them was me and one of them was my son. There was another mother and her son also wearing a mask Throughout the hallways I saw three teachers wearing masks out of the staff and I'm vaccinated. My son is not even old enough to get vaccinated. So he's going to wear a mask and he's fine with wearing a mask. He likes it. He likes to, you know, change out masks every day. So everybody gets to see these new and cool masks that he has. It's a, it's a statement for them.