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Florida Judge Blocks DeSantis Order For Schools To Reopen 'Voluntarily' Or Lose State Funding

Just like when you 'voluntarily' give your wallet to the scary dude holding a knife to your throat.

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Yesterday a judge in Leon County, Florida enjoined an order that would force Florida’s schools to reopen for in-person instruction next week, handing Governor Ron DeSantis yet another humiliating defeat in his spectacularly bungled coronavirus response.

From disappearing  people off the official death tolls, to barring county health departments from releasing their own COVID mortality data, to firing data scientists, to claiming college football players were safer in the locker room than at home, DeSantis has vanquished all comers in the duel to see which governor can handle this crisis worst. This was no less true in the academic arena, where the governor insisted that schools reopen for full-time, in-person instruction — damn the coronas, full speed ahead!

On July 6, Richard Corcoran, Commissioner of the Florida Department of Education, issued an emergency order that all school districts “must open brick and mortar schools at least five days per week for all students, subject to advice and orders of the Florida Department of Health.” Luckily, DeSantis had already barred the Department of Health from issuing any advice on whether to open schools, restricting its employees to explaining how to open in the safest manner possible. Subtle!

As added incentive to get kids into the classroom, DeSantis threatened to withhold money from schools which didn’t reopen. Specifically, the July 6 order allowed a waiver of the rule which calculates school funding by the number of students physically present at school in October, but only for those districts whose reopening plans were approved by the state.

The teachers union and the NAACP sued, alleging that the order was arbitrary and capricious, trampled local authority under Florida law, and disregarded public safety. And yesterday, Judge Charles Dodson of the Leon County Civil Division agreed.

As Judge Dodson noted, on August 6, Hillsborough County’s school board voted to delay reopening for in-person education on the advice of doctors, despite the fact that the representative from the Health Department refused to weigh in. The next day, Commissioner Corcoran threatened to withhold the waiver if they didn’t reopen fully. Faced with the loss of millions of dollars in state funds, the district reversed its position and agreed to reopen fully, a course of action the state described as “voluntary.”

Judge Dodson took a different view, though, accusing the state of “ignor[ing] the requirement of school safety” and abridging local districts’ rights under the Florida constitution.

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Because Defendants cannot constitutionally directly force schools statewide to reopen without regard to safety during a global pandemic, they cannot do it indirectly by threatening loss of funding through the Order.

Worse still, the Department of Education put forth no metric for assessing  reopening plans other than vaguely gesturing toward the very Health Department DeSantis had just muzzled. When forced by the court to explain why Hillsborough’s delayed opening plan was rejected while those of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties were approved, the state mumbled that those counties were in Phase 1 of reopening, a standard which is mentioned nowhere in the emergency order.

“Without prescribed standards for approval of plans,” Judge Dodson wrote, “the Commissioner has engaged in ad hoc and unconstitutional decision making without considering local safety and the medical opinions of experts, local or otherwise.” So the language in the order threatening to withhold waivers for the funding calculation from schools which don’t reopen immediately and without regard for student and staff safety was stricken.

Not really a great day for DeSantis (HLS 2005). But never fear, the intrepid bungler has vowed to appeal and cram those kids back into the classroom next week, COVID be damned.

Florida Education Association v. Ron DeSantis
School reopening lawsuit: Judge rules in favor of Florida teachers [Tampa Bay Times]

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Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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