WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday began compensating some Florida school board members whose pay was docked this month for defying Gov. Ron DeSantis’s ban on mask mandates, the Department of Education said.
As part of the Biden administration’s “Project SAFE” grant program, an initial sum of $148,000 has been awarded to Alachua County school board members who voted this summer to mandate masks in the county’s schools as Florida developed some of the worst rates of Covid infection in the nation.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement that the first wave of reimbursements offer a clear message to school board members nationwide: You will not be punished for overriding GOP governors and legislatures in order to make schools safer for kids.
“We should be thanking districts for using proven strategies that will keep schools open and safe,” Cardona said in his statement, adding that his agency was making sure schools and communities across the country “know that we have their backs.”
The Department of Education also published a notice inviting more districts to apply for “Project SAFE” grants.
In July, DeSantis signed an executive order stating the state would withhold funding from any district that required students to wear masks, and Broward County also voted to defy the order. A state judge upheld the county’s mask mandate a few weeks ago as Florida was setting records for Covid cases impacting children and teens at a higher rate than any other age group.
Yet the Florida Department of Education decided to press forward with withholding the salaries.
“Students deserve the opportunity to return to school in-person safely this fall, and our nation’s superintendents must have not only the authority to make the decisions about what that reopening looks like, but also freedom from unnecessarily political and punitive retaliation from their state leaders,” Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, said.
Cardona has also threatened states with mask mandate bans that billions in federal Covid relief funds they’ve received are dependent on a “safe” return to school. The Department’s Office for Civil Rights is also investigating the state of Texas to determine whether its mask mandate ban violates the rights of students with disabilities who are more likely to suffer a severe case of Covid.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff and students. At least eight states imposed mask mandate bans, including Oklahoma, Arkansas and South Carolina.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
