Florida Board of Education approves sanctioning school districts over mask mandates

Ron DeSantis
(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Florida's Board of Education voted on Thursday to sanction eight school districts that imposed mask mandates without giving students the chance to opt out, saying they are defying an emergency rule set by the state's Department of Health.

The board's commissioner, Richard Corcoran, has requested that funds for the school districts in Alachua, Brevard, Broward, Duval, Leon, Miami-Dade, Orange, and Palm Beach counties are withheld "in an amount equal to 1/12 of all school board members' salaries." He also wants to withhold any amount equal to federal grant funds awarded to the districts by the Biden administration, CNN reports.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.