55 School Board Members To Lose Salaries Over Mandating Masks At Schools

FLORIDA — The Hillsborough County School Board's last-minute decision Oct. 4 to drop the requirement for a medical opt-out from its school mask mandate got the district off the hook for sanctions by the Florida Board of Education.

A change of heart about mandating masks last month by the Sarasota and Indian River County school districts earned them the same consideration.

However, 55 school board members in eight other school districts in Florida will have their annual salaries withheld for going against Gov. Ron DeSantis' order that parents decide if their children will wear masks in school rather than school officials.

Following a Florida Board of Education meeting Thursday, the board of education authorized Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to "financially sanction the salaries of elected school board bureaucrats in eight school districts."

In its decision, the board concluded that elected school board members in Alachua, Brevard, Broward, Duval, Leon, Miami-Dade, Orange, and Palm Beach counties "willingly and knowingly violated the rights of students and parents by denying them the option to make personal and private health care and educational decisions for their children, and district leaders in Alachua and Broward have further unlawfully accepted political bailouts from federal co-conspirators to compensate them for breaking Florida law."

The board is referring to the U.S. Education Department's Project to Support America’s Families and Educators (Project SAFE) grant program, announced in early September to provide funds to schools that have been financially penalized for imposing COVID-19 measures such as mask mandates.

Alachua County’s school board was the first in the nation to receive money through Project SAFE. The U.S. Education Department awarded $147,719 to the school district in September. The department has since awarded $421,000 to Broward County.

“We should be thanking districts for using proven strategies that will keep schools open and safe, not punishing them,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement announcing Project SAFE. “We stand with the dedicated educators in Alachua and across the country doing the right thing to protect their school communities, and with today’s first-ever award under Project SAFE, we are further enabling educators to continue that critical work.”

Florida is one of 10 states that has enacted a ban on school mask mandates, a policy that's been criticized by Biden. Cardona said Project SAFE is intended to replace money withheld by states.

However, the Florida Board of Education maintained that the eight school districts ignoring the governor's executive order are violating the educational and privacy rights of students and families, not to mention state law.

“Every school board member and every school superintendent has a duty to comply with the law, whether they agree with it or not. While the district school board may not agree with the safety protocols set forth by the surgeon general, the surgeon general is the person who, under the law, sets protocols to mitigate COVID-19 in schools,” said State Board of Education Chairman Tom Grady.

“Elected school board members should set a good example for our leaders of tomorrow. Instead, they are telling our younger generations that it is perfectly acceptable to pick and choose what laws they follow because they disagree with the underlying policy," Grady said. "That is simply unacceptable and antithetical to our Constitution.”

“For nearly two months now, these school districts have barred from the school house doors thousands of children, many of whom have significant disabilities or health-related reasons that prevent them from learning with a face mask on,” said Corcoran.

“What’s so equally disturbing about these school board members’ gross violations of law, violations of law that are now receiving unprecedented and self-gratifying federal patronage from a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., is that weeks of positivity rate data now shows no difference in districts with unlawful mask mandates versus those communities that protect parents’ rights," Corcoran said. "Forced masking is a failure and these board members have truly failed to lead and failed their oaths of office.”

Under the DOE's sanctions, the school board members of the eight sanctioned school district stand to lose a total of $2,519,826 in yearly salaries.

These include:

• Alachua County's five school board members paid $40,730 each
• Broward County's nine school board members paid $47,189 each
• Brevard County's five school board members paid $44,609 each
• Duval County's seven school board members paid $47,072 each
• Leon County's five school board members paid $41,278 each
• Miami-Dade's nine school board members paid $47,189 each
• Orange County's eight school board members paid $47,189 each
• Palm Beach County's seven school board members paid $47,189 each.

Grady said each of the school districts was given a notice and grace period to correct their violations "to no avail."

In addition to withholding the salaries of school board members, the FDOE authorized Corcoran to withhold state money “in an amount equal to any federal Project SAFE grant funds" and prohibits the school district from making up for the reduction in funding by cutting student services or teacher salaries.

Click here to watch Thursday's Board of Education meeting.

See related stories:

• Hillsborough School Board Caves To Governor's Mask Mandate Threat
• Hillsborough Board Defies Governor's Order Against Mask Mandate
• U.S. Education Secretary To Support Schools With Mask Mandates
• CDC Recommends Mask In All Schools; DeSantis Will Fight Mandate
• DeSantis To School Boards: You Better Not Mandate Masking Kids
• Parents Set For FL Mask Mandate Showdown As 1st School Day Nears