Gov. Ron DeSantis has appealed a trial judge’s ruling that rejected the state Department of Education’s authority to ban local school districts from implementing COVID-19 mask mandates.
The governor’s decision to appeal the Sept. 2 ruling by Leon County Judge John Cooper to the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee puts an automatic stay on Cooper’s ruling. Whether that stay is vacated or not, however, will be a topic of a Second Judicial Circuit Court hearing this week.
“Our goal would be that the stay be removed during the pendency of the appeal so that the appeal can get resolved during (a time period of) 90 to 120 days,” Charles Gallagher, the attorney representing parents who support mask mandates, told the Florida Record.
Gallagher cited the surging number of Delta-variant COVID-19 cases in the state, high positivity rates and the number of children affected by the variant as reasons to allow local school districts to mandate masking.
“The urgency for safety purposes for the health of the kids is the basis for vacating the stay,” he said.
In its court arguments for maintaining the stay, attorneys for the governor and Department of Education said the defendants would likely succeed on appeal and that Cooper’s ruling wrongly interprets the state Parents’ Bill of Rights and improperly expands local school districts’ authority.
“Plaintiffs are incorrect in their assertions of widespread and uncontrollable harm if parent choice continues in most of Florida’s counties, or returns in certain other counties, pending disposition of this case on appeal,” the defendants’ response this week to the parents’ motion to vacate the stay states.
Attorney General Ashley Moody also weighed in on the issue last week with an advisory opinion that sides with DeSantis and argues that local school districts should be free to enforce the ban on school mask mandates while the matter is litigated. But Gallagher said that opinion would carry little legal weight.
“The attorney general is not in a place where their advisory opinion would be of help in a trial court decision that’s now under appeal,” he said. “... I don’t think it’s really part of the matrix of enforceability.”