Education Secretary says safe schools ‘require masks,’ touts op-ed critical of Florida’s anti-mask mandate law

After months of legal challenges, heated school council meetings, and confusion among parents, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law earlier this month banning schools from requiring masks for students.

Carlee Simon, the superintendent of one of the last school districts in the state to give up her mandate, Alachua County Public Schools, wrote a comment last week criticizing the anti-mask mandate law – and now Education Secretary Miguel Cardona supports her .

“It’s not complicated and Superintendent Simon is right. As educators, it is our job to protect our schools and that requires masks, ”Cardona tweeted on Monday.

Miguel Cardona speaks after President-elect Joe Biden on the 23rd (Photo by Joshua Roberts / Getty Images)

Florida Governor’s Office Ron DeSantis hit back on Monday, arguing that “the compulsory masking of school children is absolutely not the ‘scientific consensus'”.

“Secretary Cardona’s obsession with forcing children to cover their faces is rooted in politics, not public health,” DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw told Fox News Monday.

“It is not the government’s job to force children to wear masks. Governor DeSantis believes that parents know their own children best and trusts parents to make the right decisions about their children.”

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In this file photo taken on Tuesday August 10, 2021, students, some of whom are wearing protective masks, arrive for their first day of school at Sessums Elementary School in Riverview, Fla. (AP Photo / Chris O’Meara, File)

Simon, meanwhile, argued that the law is taking away “containment strategies” like masks and quarantines that schools have used to fight the pandemic.

“If another surge comes to Florida, schools will be paralyzed by heads of state who are more interested in appeasing their governor and his political base than promoting the health and well-being of their constituents,” wrote Simon.

While some studies have shown that masks can help slow the spread of COVID-19, there is also evidence that masking can harm the development of young children.

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“Masks worn in public settings and in schools or daycare can impact a number of skills in early development, such as bonding, facial processing, and socio-emotional processing,” Brown University researchers wrote in a study in August.

A student wears a face mask on the first day of school in New York City amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Brooklyn, New York, the United States, Sept. 13, 2021. REUTERS / Brendan McDermid

The World Health Organization advises that children under the age of 5 should not wear masks, and children between the ages of 6 and 11 should only wear masks under certain circumstances.

Serious illness from COVID-19 in children appears to be rare, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Children accounted for about 25.1% of all reported cases in the United States between November 11 and 18, but only 1.7% -4.0% of hospital admissions and 0.00% -0.25% of all COVID- 19 deaths.

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The Biden government has threatened legal action to several states that have refused to implement mask mandates in schools, but Cardona said he was reluctant to withhold federal funding from those counties.

“I don’t know if holding student funds is the best approach,” Cardona told Axios last month. “Ultimately, the students need more support, not less.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/education-secretary-says-safe-schools-require-masks-touts-op-ed-critical