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Florida school board votes to keep mask mandate despite governor's pay cut threat

11 August 2021
Dan Ackermann

The Broward County School Board has become the latest in Florida to defy a mask mandate ban by voting to keep the requirement for students and staff.

Why it matters: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has threatened to withhold the pay of superintendents and school board members who defy the ban, as Florida experiences a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

  • The Florida Department of Education has already sent a letter to the Broward County School Board following the 8-1 vote in favor of the mandate.

The big picture: Several school districts in Florida are pushing back on the DeSantis' executive orders barring schools from issuing mask mandates.

  • It's a similar situation in Texas, where cases are also surging.
  • Two school districts in Dallas and Bexar counties were granted by a judge on Tuesday the "temporary power to issue mask mandates" despite Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's order barring the health measure, per the Texas Tribune.

What they're saying: Broward County School Board chair Rosalind Osgood said during a meeting on the matter Tuesday that they "can't ignore this pandemic," per CNN.

  • "It's deadly, and it's getting worse instead of better and the more we don't use masks, the more we position the mutation of this virus to grow," Osgood added.

The other side: Florida Department of Education commissioner Richard Corcoran wrote in his letter that he was launching an investigation into the matter and demanded the board provide a written response by 5 p.m. this Friday.

  • "This letter is sent to express my grave concern regarding your district's significant neglect in response to the recently adopted Emergency Rule," he wrote.
  • He said the department's emergency order banning mask mandates made clear that such policies imposed by a district or school "'must allow for a parent or legal guardian of the student to opt-out the student from wearing a face covering or mask.'"

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.