WEST COAST
Opinion by:
E. Eugene Webb PhD
Author:
In
Search Of Robin
Governor Ron DeSantis has continued to expand his own personal version of the Florida sinkhole for the past week.
Doubling
down, on his “no mandated masks” the governor continues to make national
headlines as someone who openly defies the reality of science and the
practicality of protecting Florida’s children.
Check
out this article from The New York Times By Patricia Mazzei: As Covid Surges in Florida, DeSantis Refuses to Change
Course.
Governor
DeSantis and the Florida Board of Education have thrown local County School
boards into a hysterical disarray of poor choices, bad decision making,
political intrigue, and protecting themselves and their district’s revenue flow
by threatening everything from withholding funding to withholding salaries of
school board members and school district administrators.
In
many ways, this could look like a schoolyard fight between a couple of groups
of children who just genuinely don't like each other but, in this case, there
is so much more at stake.
The
scientific and medical facts that this pandemic is spreading rapidly through
schools, including both students and staff is a documented reality.
Still,
mostly for political purposes, I believe, the governor and his resident pet in
kind, Richard Cochran, continue to use the Florida public educational system as
a political football to curry favor with the anti-vaxers and the conservatives
on the far right.
In
general, I don't have a lot of really good things to say about most school
boards in Florida, the way they are run, and the way they are used for
political purposes.
In
this case, the school boards, and their leadership, both political and hired,
face a dilemma that they really shouldn't be dealing with. And it's not
necessarily just COVID-19.
DeSantis
has threatened them all personally. He threatened to take away their pay; he threatened
to take away their jobs, and he's threatened to hold them accountable. And
they're not really sure what “accountable” means.
Lost
in all of this are the kids. There are those that would be just perfectly happy
to go to school, wear their mask, get their education, go home at night, do
their studies, and act like kids normally act. Then there are some, probably
most notably the children of those you see on television screaming about you
can't force my kid to wear a mask, who want to openly challenge the school
board and educational administration system over something that borders on
insane.
For
years, there have been dress codes, in many cases uniforms, and many other
rules and restrictions implied and imposed by the educational system to further
the educational environment.
It
seems almost impossible to believe that these people consider their little
darlings so sensitive that wearing a mask will somehow affect their ability to
learn and their psyche as human beings.
What
most of these children are going to look back and finally figure out is that
their parents, we're idiots.
They
would propose to put at risk everybody else in the educational system for the
sheer benefit of their child to sit in their seat no mask, grinning defiantly
at their teacher.
All of
this we owe to the governor of the state of Florida: Ron DeSantis.
The
governor opened this sinkhole, and he keeps digging it bigger and deeper. We
can only hope it finally swallows him up.
E-mail
Doc at mail to: dr.gwebb@yahoo.com or send me a Facebook (E. Eugene Webb) Friend
request. Like or share on Facebook and follow me on TWITTER @DOC ON THE
BAY.
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Doc's Photo Gallery at Bay Post Photos.
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