ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As Florida parents and their children count down the days until the start of school in the middle of a pandemic, the president of the state's largest teacher union made his case to the country.
The Florida Education Association sued Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education following the state's emergency order to reopen physical school classrooms five days a week in August.
Speaking on NBC's "Today" on Tuesday, FEA President Fedrick Ingram said, "We don't want to be the petri dish for America. In fact, we need a survival kit."
Ingram says teachers and other adults who work in school buildings are concerned about going back as COVID-19 cases continue to rise. Florida is considered a hotspot in the U.S., ranking among the Top 3 states with the most confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University and Medicine.
The Florida Department of Health in its latest pediatric report shows 23,170 positive COVID-19 cases among children, with 246 hospitalizations and four deaths.
There is a 13.4 percent positivity rate among testing statewide.
"Any sensible person would tell you we got to get the positivity rate down, and we don't know what the fallout is going to be when you start to cram hundreds of thousands of children in our schools," Ingram said
Schools were built for social interaction, Ingram said, not social distancing -- something the state's Department of Education acknowledges in its 143-page guide to reopening schools. It says schools, college campuses and child care programs are "inherently high-contract settings" and, therefore, "reopening will require locally-driven strategies. ..."
But the FEA in its lawsuit asserts the state's order is a violation of Florida's constitution, which does not promote a "safe" and "secure" school, and that the state is "putting arbitrary and capricious demands" on schools.
The Florida Department of Education in response to the lawsuit said the FEA "hasn't read nor understands the ... guidance (and) emergency order." It said it is allowing parents to have the choice of whether to return to school if they so choose, with virtual options available for parents and students who opt for e-learning instead.
Ingram told "Today" in response: "The commissioner [Richard Corcoran] and the governor gave our community at large a choice to go to the beaches, to be reckless at bars, to be reckless at restaurants. We cannot simply get this wrong in our public schools.
"There are 2.8 million children that are depending on us to get this right. This is a life or death situation to get this right."
School districts across Florida, including those in Tampa Bay, are reassessing the typical Aug. 10 start date. Some, including in Polk and Sarasota counties, will delay the start of school by at least a week.
Others are considering doing so or will at least require face masks within school buildings in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19.
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