Florida judge moves quickly to hear legal challenge to reopening schools - WJXT News4JAX

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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As students in more than a dozen Florida counties return to classrooms this week amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson held his first hearing in a lawsuit challenging Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran’s order that schools reopen campuses. He agreed that timing was a concern and set a second hearing Friday morning to hear the state’s motion to dismiss the suit.

If Dodson allows the case to proceed, the two sides would have a couple of days to mediate before he would hear arguments Wednesday to issue a temporary injunction.

The Florida Education Association teachers union is challenging Corcoran’s July 6 emergency order requiring schools to reopen in August unless state and local health officials say otherwise. The union alleges that Corcoran’s directive violates the state Constitution, which guarantees Floridians the right to “safe” and “secure” public education.

“Look, we all want to go back to school. All of the teachers in this state are wanting to go back to school, but they’re not dying to go back to school and that’s what they’re confronted with,” the FEA’s attorney, Ron Meyer, argued on Thursday. “Your honor, just as we’re all on a Zoom hearing because it’s not safe for us to gather in a courtroom, why would it be any more safe for us to expect our teaching staff, our custodians, our bus drivers (be) present to public schools for seven-hour days in classes of 25 or 30 children and not expect to be putting them at risk?”

Gov. Ron DeSantis and Corcoran have repeatedly said all school districts need to offer in-person instruction to parents who want to send their kids back to school after the pandemic forced campuses to shut down in March and required students to shift to online learning.

At a public meeting at the White House on Wednesday, Corcoran told President Donald Trump:

“We said, ‘You have to open up, as an option, five days a week for s- -- for schoolchildren.’ And now, in Florida -- we’re in August -- our first schools are opening up this week. And throughout August, we’ll have -- all 67 of our districts will open.”

Under Corcoran’s order, school districts outside of Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward counties risk losing state funds if they don’t open bricks-and-mortar classrooms. Only one county -- Hillsborough -- has defied the mandate. Lawyers representing DeSantis, Corcoran and other state education officials are asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit, which originally was filed in Miami but was transferred to Tallahassee on Friday.

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Dodson was assigned to the case this week, after Leon County Circuit Judges Angela Dempsey and John Cooper recused themselves. In a motion asking that the case be dismissed, the state’s lawyers argued that Corcoran’s order “does not mandate that all students and teachers return to school in person in August” and that his directive “contains no absolute, state-wide mandate requiring in-person classes without regard to health or safety.”

But Kendall Coffey, an attorney who represents the FEA, told reporters last week that the emergency order, which requires schools to offer “the full panoply of services” to students, “has had the effect of … financially and otherwise intimidating school boards.” School districts, teachers and students “have been left with a confusing and inconsistent mandate as they try to navigate reopening,” the FEA’s lawyers wrote Friday in a response to the motion to dismiss.

“Teachers, fearing for their lives, have rushed resignations and retirements, even with retirement penalties. Florida deserves much better than confusing commands concerning life and death issues.”

“We are being sued by the union bosses, and they are disgraceful -- absolutely disgraceful,” Corcoran told Trump’s forum on Wednesday. “But the reality is, of the districts that opened up this week, six of them have almost 100% teacher participation. You know what teachers want? Teachers want to be back in the classroom with their kids. Even if they have an underlying condition, they want to be back and that’s what we’re seeing in Florida.”

The commissioner said all six of his children who are in public school will be heading back to classrooms on Thursday. Corcoran said Florida has the largest virtual school system in the country, but schools must reopen for students with unique abilities because virtual options don’t suffice for their particular kind of learning.

“But I completely respect and wanted to honor the decision of a parent who says, ‘Well, what about -- I -- I don’t feel safe.’ I think the evidence is overwhelming. We’ve all seen it. But ... you have that right. If you want to do distance learning, we’re going to do the best possible way. But to the other 70%, 80% of us, we have the right, too, to go back and have our kids get that world-class education.”

Since some schools have already reopened and the rest are due to resume before the end of the month, the union is asking Dodson to expedite the lawsuit, which is slated for an online hearing Thursday morning.

News Service of Florida contributed to this report. This article will be updated with the outcome of that hearing and what comes next.

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Florida judge moves quickly to hear legal challenge to reopening schools - WJXT News4JAX
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