Florida officials have promised to pay for parents to move their children to private schools if they are 'bullied' for not wearing face masks in schools.
The Florida Department of Education approved an emergency rule Friday to hand out private school vouchers to any parent wanting to take their children out of public schools that have enforced mask mandates.
Such vouchers, offered through the Hope Scholarship, are usually used to move children from schools where they are the victims of bullying.
Under the emergency measure, the vouchers can now be used to move students out of school if they are subjected to so-called 'COVID-19 harassment' - where parents say a school's mask mandate or other COVID-19 restrictions amount to harassment and discrimination of their children.
This marks the latest round of the fight between Governor Ron DeSantis and local school boards in Florida.
Last Friday, DeSantis issued an executive order banning schools from issuing mask mandates for students when they return to class next month and vowed that Florida will not introduce any new COVID-19 restrictions.
The governor threatened to withhold state funding from school districts if they did not comply.
COVID-19 cases are surging across the Sunshine State with officials recording the highest tally of new infections Friday since the start of the pandemic and children accounting for around a fifth of all new cases.
Florida officials have promised to pay for parents to move their children to private schools if they are 'bullied' for not wearing face masks in schools. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at a press conference Thursday
Florida's Education Board unanimously approved the emergency measure in a meeting Friday allowing parents to request the vouchers if they feel COVID-19 protocols 'pose a health or educational danger to their child,' reported WSVN.
'Unnecessarily isolating, quarantining, or subjecting children to physical COVID-19 constraints in schools poses a threat to developmental upbringing and should not occur absent a heightened showing of actual illness or serious risk of illness to other students,' the board said.
Parents will be able to transfer their child to a private school or to another public school in another school district.
The rule defines COVID-19 harassment as 'any threatening, discriminatory, insulting, or dehumanizing verbal, written or physical conduct an individual student suffers in relation to, or as a result of, school district protocols for COVID-19, including masking requirements, the separation or isolation of students, or COVID-19 testing requirements, that have the effect of substantially interfering with a student's educational performance.'
The average cost of private school tuition in Florida is $9,157 a year, according to Private School Review.
The decision to use a scheme designed to protect bullied children and taxpayer money for parents unhappy with mask rules was slammed by Florida Rep. Omari Hardy.
'Florida's Board of Education just agreed to use taxpayer dollars to pay private school tuition for kids who want to attend schools that don't require masks,' he tweeted.
'Governor DeSantis & his minions are using their emergency powers to make the emergency worse.'
DeSantis has gone to war with school districts over COVID-19 protocols, banning mask mandates last Friday.
The Florida Department of Education approved an emergency rule Friday to hand out private school vouchers to any parent wanting to take their children out of public schools that have enforced mask mandates
The governor said in a press conference that parents have the right to decide whether or not their children wear masks in the classroom.
'Why would we have the government force masks on our kids when many of these kids are already immune through prior infection, they're at virtually zero risk of significant illness and when virtually every school personnel had access to vaccines for months and months?' DeSantis said.
At least four school districts have defied the order and imposed mask mandates in schools however others bowed to the state's rules.
Both Gadsden and Broward County school districts announced they would not require students to wear masks - a walk-back on their previous plans.
Broward County School Board however then changed its mind again
