By: Max Baron
Throughout the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, Florida’s public schools have continued to be contentious battlegrounds for the debate on mask mandates. Namely, Governor Ron DeSantis’s emergency rules have explicitly prohibited Florida’s public school districts from enforcing mask mandates in classrooms.[1]
But as many students resume pre-COVID-19 routines, there remains a small, but vocal group of children, with the help of their parents, who simply cannot afford to believe that the pandemic is winding down.
Take the case of Fourth grader Reefy Kinder, who has been learning virtually since the beginning of the pandemic, or almost two years.[2] Reefy has suffered from a long-term gastro-intestinal condition. She has endured over thirty surgeries over the course of her life as a patient at Orlando’s Arnold Palmer children’s hospital.[3]
With the return of in-person teaching for her classmates, Reefy’s parents deem the school too unsafe for their immunocompromised child.[4] The Kinders are among eleven families who are filing a federal lawsuit against Governor DeSantis, the Florida Department of Education, and several school districts, claiming they have jeopardized the lives of their children in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”).[5]
Historically, the ADA has been a beacon for disability advocacy since its legislation in 1990.[6] The law asserts that “individuals with disabilities continually encounter various forms of discrimination, including outright intentional exclusion [. . . and] failure to make modifications to existing facilities and practices. . . .”[7]
The Kinders are relying upon the ADA by framing their lawsuit in terms of how the current orders potentially expose their daughter to COVID-19. Jamie Kinder, Reefy’s mother, argues “The parents that are going to send their kids into school Covid-positive, without masks, without mitigation, these parents are making decisions for me now [. . .] Where are my rights? Where are Reefy’s?”[8]
What the Kinder family is fighting for comprises a classic constitutional debate: how far does one person’s freedom go without beginning to inhibit the freedom of others? These families, alongside many others, represent an important and unfortunately widely overlooked demographic throughout the pandemic–those whose family members already suffer with longstanding disabilities and diseases and cannot afford the risk-taking actions that more able-bodied persons possess.
Also on the receiving end of the Kinder family’s blame is Florida state surgeon general Joseph Ladapo, who was recently handpicked for the role by Governor DeSantis earlier this September.[9] In the short span of Lapado’s tenure, he has “questioned the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines, fought masking mandates, and mocked lockdowns and other restrictive policies. . . .”[10]
Ladapo’s personal disregard for the effectiveness of masks and vaccines would appear less in conflict with his professional role were it not for his refusal to allow school districts to even question the idea of bringing mandates to their classrooms. Former Florida governor and Democratic congressman Charlie Crist weighed his opinion on Lapado’s virulent refusal of enforcing mask mandates in the state: “Dr Ladapo has made it abundantly clear where he stands,” Crist said, “He is not with parents, students and teachers, he’s decided to help the governor [DeSantis] lead the charge on a soft-on-Covid approach that makes our communities less safe and more prone to an outbreak.”[11]
As different political figures throughout Florida weigh in on Ladapo and DeSantis’s actions, we all should consider the political climate’s impact on the children involved. Children with disabilities are representative of those who have neither the time nor the facilities to truly understand why their home state does not follow the lead of others when it comes to their protection. Reefy explains this confusion: “I don’t understand why the governor and the new surgeon general don’t care about my safety and health, or any other child.”[12]
Here, we are under the crushing weight of a state government that refuses to even entertain the idea that school districts should at the very least be able to determine their own mandates. The Florida legislature, in its laissez-faire avoidance of all questions of mandates, has ironically acted in a tyrannical manner in hamstringing its school districts. In turn, our state officials, regardless of their own personal political belief, appear as purposefully callous in the face of children like Reefy Kinder.
At a minimum, Florida needs to entertain the question of what constitutional rights immunocompromised children, such as Reefy, have in these times. Anything short of this very low bar poses a surefire risk to those who still are at great risk in the presence of another’s unmasked breath. And who knows just how much time shall pass before the next COVID-19 variant, or even next disease, takes hold? Let us hope that it is long enough to allow for discussions of the safety of all our students to occur beforehand.
[1] CBS News Staff, Florida’s Board of Education to consider possible punishments for districts enforcing the mask mandates, CBS News (October 8, 2021) https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-school-mask-mandates-covid/.
[2] Richard Luscombe, This fourth grader just wants to go to school. Florida’s risky Covid policies force her to stay home, The Guardian (September 28, 2021) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/28/florida-covid-policies-students-stay-home.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT OF 1990, 1990 Enacted S. 933, 101 Enacted S. 933, 104 Stat. 327, 328.
[7] Id.
[8] CBS News Staff, Florida to consider punishing districts for enforcing mask mandates, Wink News (October 7, 2021) https://www.winknews.com/2021/10/07/florida-to-consider-punishing-districts-for-enforcing-mask-mandates/.
[9] Editorial Board, What’s Florida surgeon general Joseph Ladapo’s problem? | Editorial, Tampa Bay Times (October 26, 2021) https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2021/10/26/whats-florida-surgeon-general-joseph-ladapos-problem-editorial/.
[10] Id.
[11] Luscombe, This fourth grader just wants to go to school. Florida’s risky Covid policies force her to stay home.
[12] Id.
