I left my teaching job in March of this year, while I was on a Covid leave of absence. But as the new school year approaches, things feel a little too similar to last year. The Governor is mandating things he has no right to mandate. School Boards across the state are mostly bowing to the Governor.
In Pinellas County, there are some School Board members who want to do the right thing and adopt a mask mandate when schools open. Below is my letter to the remaining School Board members to encourage them to do the right thing… The language may be strong, but honestly I’m done pussy-footing around things.
Dear SB Members Long, Cook, Dudley, and Cane:
Last year around this time I wrote you about the same thing: returning to schools safely during the Covid pandemic. Then I wrote as a teacher: someone who would be directly affected by the outcomes of your decisions.
This year, as a voting and concerned resident who has friends still teaching in Pinellas County Schools, I ask that you join the other school districts across the state who have adopted a mask mandate for all school employees and students to start the school year.
Governor DeSantis’s Executive Order banning mask mandates oversteps his bounds. You have the Constitutionally protected right to make decisions about school operations. Pinellas County students, school employees, and families need you to do the hard thing and stand up against our bully Governor to protect the health of everyone who walks into our county’s school buildings.
Pinellas County Schools has a bullying policy. Every time the School Board allows Governor DeSantis to bully it, you’ve allowed him to step over another line in the sand and to negatively impact our students, school employees, and families more and more. Good leaders model the behaviors they want to see. It is imperative that you stand up to this bully and enact a mask mandate to preserve the health of all students, school employees, and families as much as practicable. It is literally the least you should do.
By allowing our bully of a Governor to insist upon unsafe working and learning conditions to persist last year, Pinellas County Schools already lost me (a Ph.D. in her field with five years ratings as a highly effective teacher) and dozens of other highly qualified, passionate teachers to early retirement and other work. I enjoy my new job immensely, but if working conditions were different last year I’d very likely be getting ready to walk into my classroom this year. My heart hurts for my friends, knowing they may be walking into an avoidable, unsafe working environment for the second year in a row solely because the Pinellas County School Board is afraid to stand up to a bully.
Is that what you represent? Or will you do the right thing and stand up for student, school employee, and family health by supporting a mask mandate in Pinellas County Schools?
Thank you for your time. Please do the right thing. The community is with you.
Sincerely,
Christy M. Foust, Ph.D.
former PCS Teacher