Letter to Hon. Miguel Cardona, Secretary of United States Department of Education - Crist Reiterates Call to Investigate DeSantis' Defunding of schools

Letter

Dear Secretary Cardona:

I write to follow up on my August 13, 2021 letter encouraging the Department of Education to take action to protect the rights of students with disabilities. I am thrilled by the announcement yesterday that under your leadership, the Department's Office for Civil Rights began investigating the actions of five states and whether their bans on masks mandates in schools violate the rights of students with disabilities guaranteed by Section 504. Although my home State of Florida was not among the five, a release from Department of Education explains that this is because Florida's "[ban] on universal indoor masking [is] not currently being enforced as a result of court orders…" To that point, I was encouraged by Judge John Cooper's ruling that Governor DeSantis exceeded his authority with his ban on mask mandates. However, as you probably have seen, the DeSantis Administration defied that ruling last night and began sanctioning school boards that mandated masks -- literally, defunding our schools.

Across our state, school boards are following the science and requiring masks where the delta variant is spreading out of control. Their courage, in defiance of the Governor's unlawful order, is keeping schools open and safe, while protecting the rights of students with disabilities to attend class safely, in person, with their peers. The actions by the DeSantis Administration to defund our schools in retaliation for following the science to keep our schools open and safe make it clear that Florida's ban on universal indoor masking is currently being enforced. Given this, I would strongly encourage the Department of Education to announce that the Office for Civil Rights will begin investigating Florida to protect the rights of Florida students with disabilities.

Sincerely,

Charlie Crist
MEMBER OF CONGRESS

Source