Currently, in Florida, as more and more schools begin to prepare to reopen again amid the coronavirus pandemic, two sides have extremely different agendas. The Governor’s Office and the Florida Education Association continue to go head to head, as Judge Charles Dodson continues to try and help both sides find a bit of common ground. If middle ground can’t be found, then the judge will begin to hear in court the FEA’s side as they push to keep schools closed.
Judge Dodson says that this is the kind of court case that is asking for both parties to find a resolution together. The state tried to dismiss the complaint of the union, but Judge Dodson blocked this. As the weekend drew to a close, both parties went onto Twitter to stake their claim.
State Order in Force Has Schools Reopening
The Hillsborough district has now diverted from its original plan to keep schools close for four weeks. When in-person learning is allowed to resume, everybody on the school campus will be required to wear a mask. One small group of families attempted to sue to get rid of the mandatory mask regulation, and as a result, there have been several exceptions added to it.
Children that are required to stay at home and be instructed for school online are expected to receive separate classes. However, most are finding that they are being mixed into the groups of students who are in the classroom. As a result, many parents and some teachers aren’t happy.
If children are going to be required to stay at home for the foreseeable future and do school online, then they need to be equipped with the right resources. For those who have trouble with particular subjects, like reading, there are resources out there available to them, for example. There are a number of reading comprehension apps to assist with a potential setback from reopening schools again soon.
Your Child Could Soon be at Home Again
While your child might have started the school year being allowed in the classroom, this doesn’t mean that they’ll be there at the end of it. As schools began to reopen, more and more classes were quickly restricted, and some were shut down altogether, as both students and teachers began to show signs of the virus.
The school district in Bradford County reported that they had a case after just three days of in-class learning, and after a week, four schools had seen positive cases. However, Governor Ron DeSantis says that schools shouldn’t be shutting down again just because they have seen a few positive cases. He believes that they could be a lot more ‘surgical’ with their strategy.
Medical experts recommend that in Orange County, careful consideration is taken when choosing which students should return. They say that middle and high school students should come back later than elementary school students. Interestingly, when it comes to kindergarten, many didn’t close at all.
The decision whether to send your child back to school or not is a hard one, so hopefully, time will bring more clarity to a fickle, frustrating situation, where two sides have very opposing views.