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Welcome back.
With governor Ron DeSantis gearing up to punish
the Broward school district
because they instituted a mask mandate.
I spoke to the chair of the Broward school board,
Dr. Rosalind Osgood.
We started with Broward students
getting back to the classroom this week.
Jim, I was very excited
on the first day of school on Wednesday.
I was able to visit seven schools.
It was quite refreshing to see our staff,
to see our students.
Our teachers were just so excited
to receive the students back.
The students were so glad to be interacting with each other.
It made me really feel very happy
that our board, eight out of nine of us,
took the stance to mandate masks.
At the end of the day, we had one teacher and one student
that refused to wear a mask.
And we followed our discipline policy
where we asked the student to put on a mask.
We asked the teacher.
The teacher refused, so the teacher was sent home
and we'll then have a due process hearing the next morning.
And then we'll follow the disciplinary matrix
because we feel that it is critically important
in the midst of this pandemic that we do everything we can
to protect our students and our staffs from the pandemic,
while focusing on education
and trying to help accelerate student learning
because of the dramatic impact that COVID
has had on students and their families.
Now, the one school board member you mentioned,
all but one of you voted for the mask mandate.
Lori Alhadeff is the school board member
who voted against the mask mandate.
Even though I think she supports the idea,
she said that she couldn't vote for it
because it would violate state law
given the governor's executive order.
That was the basis of her voting against a mask mandate.
Why doesn't that point have validity for you?
If the governor signs an executive order,
and this is the law in the state of Florida,
why are you able to, why do you think
you can preempt that law?
Well, Jim, personally, I believe that all laws are legal
until they're challenged in court.
Being a black woman, I remember a time
that slavery was legal and we had to fight
to make it illegal.
It was not the right thing to do.
When I think about this whole issue of the law,
as particularly as it relates to parents' rights,
when I put my six year old granddaughter, Kyla,
and my 17 month old grand baby Gabriel in a car,
I have to put them in a car seat
and I have to put the seatbelt over them.
I don't have a right of choice.
When my individual right puts others in harm and danger,
then it takes away that right.
So under no circumstances am I ever going to follow
or agree with the law that could potentially cause
the life of somebody else.
The moral outcome of that somebody getting sick with COVID
or being killed and are having a life-long complication
because I made a policy decision to put their life at risk,
will never be okay with me.
And I'll go on to say,
I'm willing to pay whatever penalty I have to,
if my salary is taken away, if I'm removed from office,
whatever the consequence is to protect somebody's lives.
I just believe as a moral human being
that people's lives are invaluable,
and I just can't follow a law that's gonna hurt them.
Have you seen...
To what extent have you seen parents
withdraw their children from the public school system
and seek to move them to either private schools,
or a charter school, or take a voucher
and move their child as a result of this decision?
Have you gotten any early indication
as how many parents have made that choice?
Yeah, yesterday we had a small number of parents,
and I don't recall what that number is,
but it was very small.
When we think about it, most of the private schools,
Catholic private schools, I reached out to several of them.
They are requiring masks.
Some of the charter schools are requiring masks.
No school district wants to have school disrupted.
We learned during the pandemic
that our students did not do well virtually.
We learned that suicide rates increase,
their mental health was really at jeopardy,
and they didn't have the support services that they get
in a school setting with the meals,
the nurturing from teachers and staff, the mentoring ship.
So we believe wholeheartedly
that they need to be back in school face to face.
And we believe that we can do that safely with masks.
So when the parent has an option to pull out
and go to a private school or another school
with the HOPE scholarship
because they don't want their student to wear a mask,
they make that option.
Or they could do Broward virtual
or Florida virtual in that sense.
But there's more parents who want mask mandate.
I had several conversations with parents
on the first day of school who were very grateful
and expressed to me how they felt more comfortable
sending their children to school with the mask mandate.
And just outright told me
that if we didn't mandate the mask,
they would have just kept the child home
because they don't want to put their children at risk.
Well, one of the things
that I think is been so fascinating about this is,
you know, policy butting directly up against
the health of students.
And you saw the governor's policy
be supported by Hillsborough County initially,
and as a result of not having a mask mandate
in Hillsborough county schools,
I think there are more than 10,000 students
that are in some form or quarantine
and more than three or 400 teachers and staff
who are as well because they've been in contact
with someone who has now tested positive for COVID.
That then prompted the Hillsborough school board
to now issue a mask mandate.
They tried it without the mandate.
They saw the failure of it.
Now they've gone to a mask mandate, and theoretically,
Hillsborough will be sanctioned
just like you will be sanctioned.
Yeah, we were not willing to take that risk.
We were really hoping that the governor
would have worked with us from the other perspective.
We agreed to mandate masks and revisit it
after the labor day holiday.
So we were really hoping that we would have an opportunity
to try our plan, get some results, some data.
And if it didn't work, we could change it.
You know, see how many parents wanted to opt out.
See actually what would happen.
We were not given that opportunity.
We began to be bullied and get these threats,
but we stuck to what we felt
was the best policy making decision
to protect the lives of the people that we serve.
We're not willing to risk somebody getting COVID, Jim.
Many people are dying from COVID.
There are people that have had COVID
that now have lifelong problems
with their lungs, with their hearts.
Think about a child that's under 12
that does not have an opportunity for a vaccination.
That they come into a school system
where people are not wearing masks and God forbid,
they get COVID, they get sick,
and now their life is impacted forever.
When as a school board member,
I could have made a decision to offer them
a level of protection or put something in place
to mitigate that likelihood of them getting COVID,
and I chose not to do that.
Let me just ask you this.
Earlier, you said that, you know,
you don't like the fact that the district
seems to have been, I think the word you use was bullied.
Do you consider the governor to be a bully on this issue?
I do.
If we were able to sit down
and talk through some of these issues,
we could come to a resolution.
To be so strong about the mask option
and not coming to the table to listen and hear
and at least explore alternatives, it's just one way.
You either do it this way, and if you don't,
I'm gonna punish you.
Well, that's how bullies do.
That's intimidation.
And it's not the way to do public policy
because it puts your local school board in a position
to have to go against you publicly
because they have to protect and serve the people
that they've been elected to serve.
You can't put people's lives in jeopardy
with this whole mask mandate thing,
and having masks be optional.
You just can't do it.