Although much of the media has targeted the state of Florida and its GOP governor, Ron DeSantis, for permitting children to return to in-person learning far earlier than most states, having started last August, The Wall Street Journal reports “data shows Florida started in-person learning without turning schools into superspreaders.”
Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran issued an executive order last July telling school districts to provide in-person learning as an option for families. He wrote:
School districts and charter school governing boards must provide the full array of services that are required by law so that families who wish to educate their children in a brick and mortar school full-time have the opportunity to do so; these services include in-person instruction (barring a state or local health directive to the contrary), specialized instruction and services for students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) or live synchronous or asynchronous instruction with the same curriculum as in-person instruction and the ability to interact with a student’s teacher and peers as approved by the Commissioner of Education.
Corcoran told the Journal that as of this week, 80% of students in Florida are now attending school in-person either full-time or part-time.
“Florida consistently has had lower rates of Covid-19 in schools than in the community at large, according to a data dashboard created by Brown University, data company Qualtrics and others,” the Journal noted, adding, “In the last two weeks of February, the daily case rate per 100,000 people was 22 among students and 15 among school staff, compared with 27 in the community, according to the data. In earlier periods going back to October, the student and staff rates were almost always less than half the community rate.- READ MORE
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