BIDEN HAS FLORIDA SCHOOL DISTRICT’S BACK

The Biden administration on Thursday began to reimburse Florida school board members who were financially penalized for requiring masks in districts against Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) executive order.

The Department of Education announced that it gave almost $148,000 in funding to the School Board of Alachua County as part of its Project to Support America’s Families and Educators grant program.

Alachua County Public Schools board is the first to receive the grant funding from the program designed to compensate school districts that have their money withheld by the state for instituting an indoor mask mandate.

So far, the state has withheld two months worth of salaries for the four school board members who voted to support the mask requirement, the district said, amounting to almost $27,000.

“We should be thanking districts for using proven strategies that will keep schools open and safe, not punishing them,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said.

Background: The Florida Department of Education told the Alachua County Public Schools that the state planned to withhold money from the district after the school board voted in mid-August to extend its mask requirement beyond the first two weeks of school.

The dispute over DeSantis’s executive order has evolved into an ongoing court battle, with a state judge upholding school mask mandates before an appeals court reinstated the governor’s order earlier this month.