School districts in Texas and Florida have announced Monday that they will require their students and staff to wear masks when in-person classes start later this month, defying their states’ Republican governors’ orders and risking funding.
ABC News reports that two Florida school districts, the 30,000-student Alachua County School District and the 34,000-student Leon County School District, will counterman Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s order that prohibits schools from requiring mask wearing. Florida is home to one-in-five new coronavirus cases during the latest surge.
In Texas, Dallas Independent Schools, the 17th largest school district in the country with more than 155,000 students, will require students and staff to wear masks, the Dallas Morning News reports.
The Florida schools’ decisions will force a legal confrontation with DeSantis, who has vowed to withhold state funding from any school district that requires masks. Florida has also mandated that local school districts pay the costs and tuition of students who opt to attend another school district or a private school if their home district requires masks.
While Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has not overtly threatened cutting off funding, Abbott signed an ambiguous executive order in May that fines anyone implementing a mask mandate in schools $1,000. It is unclear how a fine would be assessed against a school board or if the fine was a one-time fine or assessed daily.
Texas has experienced its highest number of hospitalized coronavirus patients recently, as the delta variant spreads throughout the country and Texas vaccination rates remain low.