The article below from the Miami Herald sums up the recent lawsuit by Florida educators against Florida governor Ron DeSantis " ... to stop the “reckless and unsafe reopening of schools” this fall amid Florida’s surging COVID-19 cases."

From the article:

"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 Florida’s surging COVID-19 cases."

“He (the governor) is in intense denial ... This lawsuit is about trying to get the governor, (and) the mayor (of Miami) 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 Florida Department of Education has responded by calling the lawsuit "frivolous and reckless", and maintains that the governor's executive order was in reality only meant to offer a choice for educators and parents between traditional in-school education and other, likely online, options.

But apparently there has also been talk of "punitive measures" if the schools don't open soon for in-school classes as in previous years.

As of now, the matter is unsettled, more legal action is likely to follow, and it's unclear how this is all going to play out in Florida.

But it's only one example of the kinds of pandemic-inspired lawsuits that could come to be commonplace in the near future.

The more time that passes, and the more disruption that the pandemic causes, the greater the likelihood that some people or businesses will resort to litigation against others, justified or only perceived as such, to recover their losses.

As here, an education association suing a state, or a business suing an insurance company for failure to pay for losses due to the pandemic, retailers suing supply chains for delays caused by the pandemic, the list could go on.

Possibly one rather ugly side effect of the damage and chaos being caused by the pandemic, and one that we will likely be seeing more of in coming days, unfortunately.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article244350157.html

F8 said...
florida is a key state for many reasons. a republican has not won the white house in 96 years without winning florida.

so expect plenty more news from florida.

https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2020/08/04/trump-reverses-himself-says-voting-by-mail-in-florida-is-fine/

In fact, we've "learned" from our leader today that Florida is, miraculously, the only state that you can trust to handle mail-in ballots without a fraudulent count.

Djin, who can't wait for tomorrow.

A second grade class in Georgia made it one day into the new school years, then shut again after a student was found to be infected (mask wearing at the school is optional). The teacher, and 20 students, are now quarantined.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8596403/georgia-classroom-shut-student-tests-positive-covid-19.html

I feel safe to say this is happening all over the country, and that adherence to public health measures (masks) among students, is spotty, among places it is optional.

It's gonna be a disaster.

It's gonna be a disaster when they go back to the classroom.

The governor of Arizona just announced schools will open in 2 weeks.
What could go wrong with that?

Coincidentally, he goes to Washington to meet his master tomorrow.
The last time they met our governor opened the state prematurely and look how that worked out.

These guys play games with people's lives and I'd like to see all of them jailed.
Maybe our teachers will refuse to go in.

<< The governor of Arizona just announced schools will open in 2 weeks... Coincidentally, he goes to Washington to meet his master tomorrow. >>

I don't quite understand Governor Ducey's behavior. He's termed out as the Governor of Arizona. Either he believes he's doing the right thing, or he has future political plans. Maybe I'm getting too political, but it seems like a lot of Congress and Governors are betting all-in on the current structure to continue. It would be interesting stuff, if it weren't for the enormous consequences involved.

No longer is it about right or wrong just left or right. I personally like these decisions being made on a State and district level. I also like the option most parents have regarding the choice of cyber or in class learning. The virus will be with us until we have an effective vaccine that people will take or develop herd immunity. Just a fact. There is no definitive time table for either. Also, I see a lot of criticism especially for Florida that I don’t believe the CDC data supports. An example being death rate from Covid. As of August 5th New York’s death rate is 168/100K residents; Florida is 34/100K residents.

djin said...
In fact, we've "learned" from our leader today that Florida is, miraculously, the only state that you can trust to handle mail-in ballots without a fraudulent count.

F8 said...
now check the approval ratings of the respective governors to see how the people of those states feel.

So is this one of those famous “science based” discussions ? Asking for a friend. ;)

We need to open our schools. The virus targets older people. The fatality rate for kids is miniscule. Older teachers (say older than 50) should be offered paid disability until they can get vaccinated as if they were ill. Kids who live with grandparents should be offered at home instruction where a tutor drops in on them several times a week (like if they had mono or were recovering from some other illness).

Where is the creativity? There is more than one way around this.

Halbert once again I will agree with you, if we don't provide some type of structure to the millions of kids that don't have any in their homes the outcome will be much worse than covid! I'm pretty much fed up with most of attitudes here lately on our forum. We are criticizing government, politicians, local, state, federal leaders! We are doing this while most of us here have Social Security, Pensions, 401 plans. We don't have a fricking clue what it is like to be living paycheck to paycheck!!!!! There is not a rental dwelling left in the USA that can be rented on minimum wage! this is reality while automation is wonderful it is causing the loss of thousands and thousands of manufacturing jobs causing us to be come more and more and service industry which is usually at the bottom of the barrel in wages!! Getting children through High School, college, vocational school is gonna become more important than ever. Yes it is going to be very hard to get schools going but we are going to have to figure a way to do it as safely as we can. I wish I had the answers but am going through this right now with my grandson, trying to help his Mom who is a lead RN at the worst hospital in Minnesota and Dad who works in an essential business figure out how to manage going to school couple days a week and then online learning for the other days when both parents work full time. Yet we consider ourselves very fortunate! Mom has a nice house, Dad has a nice rental house and our grandson has 3 sets of grandparents that are able to help to varying degrees. Just imagine the millions of kids that don't have these privileges or options. These kids need to go to school every day! Our teachers need to be recognized as heroes not the sports players, not the criminals, not the filthy rich!!!! I'm done my grandson just woke up and we have new things and adventures waiting for us today Larry

GTO Guy said...
That is the reality we face.
What's going to happen to these kids if school is not available to them ?

It depends. I'm a retired high school teacher and glad that I am retired and not having to make a decision whether to go back or not.

That said, I was very involved in performance issues over my career and came across an interesting study. It looked at kids who had been kept out of ANY education by their parents. Some were refusers who were not even home schooling. Some were kids who'd been kept secluded from society. The states had taken these kids into care, average age of 14-years, and the study wanted to look at how long it took for these kids to attain proper grade-level achievement. The answer was about a year and a half.

The moral of this story is that the function and purpose of schools goes way beyond academic achievement. I am less concerned about students losing a year of academic learning as they can certainly catch up. Probably the most attractive feature of the schools is their custodial function, that is, supervising the kids while parents are elsewhere engaged. This seems to be the most common refrain we hear when schools are closed: "What am I supposed to do with my kids?" And, yes, kids do benefit from the social learning environment school can provide, especially in the younger grades.

However, bristle when I see grown ups talking about risk levels, which are never zero, like they are the war generals and willing to accept a certain number of casualties to achieve a goal. It's not war. It's school.

A recent post on wife’s FB

“You are going to send your kid to school with a Paw Patrol mask and he’s going to come home with a Spiderman mask because he made a trade at lunch. The whole school will be shutdown the next day.”