The largest teacher's union in Florida is suing the state after Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran signed an executive order requiring schools to reopen for in-person learning in just a few weeks. The Florida Education Association claims the state lacks an effective plan to combat coronavirus in schools.
"The gist of this lawsuit is that we want to make sure that our schools, when they reopen, reopen in the safest, most responsible way possible. We want to make sure we're looking out for the health of our students and for the people that work in our schools," said Andrew Spar, vice president of the union.
The state has reported more than 23,000 kids have tested positive for COVID-19. Spar said that number will surely rise if students, teachers, and faculty begin to gather again on school grounds.
"We don't know how people working in our schools, during the summer, have been diagnosed with COVID because they're not tracking them for that information."
Spar said a lawsuit against the state was the only option after attempts to negotiate with education officials failed.
"The task force they put together, out of 24 people, had three educators on it," he said.
The teachers union and community members drafted a list of recommendations for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but Spar believes it was likely ignored for political reasons.
"The governor has said early on, 'This is about economics. We want to make sure that our economy is growing,'" Spar stated.
An immediate fix in place of litigation would be the removal of the executive order and the implementation of virtual learning for the start of the school year, according to the union vice president.
"Let's put measures in place," he said. "Let the local school boards decide. There may be some places in the state where they can reopen in the brick and mortar sense, but let's be real that in a lot of parts of our state, where we've been really high in the number of cases, it's just not wise."
While options like remote learning can pose issues for many communities that lack access to internet service, Spar said this speaks to a larger issue our government should be addressing.
"Remote learning is clearly going to be an issue, it always has been, it's not ideal but under the conditions we have right now, it's probably the best way to go," he said.
Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, admitted Wednesday that a poll showing a statistical dead heat between Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren, was an outlier among polls.
The British pound sterling fell sharply after British PM Boris Johnson announced he was asking for Parliament to be suspended from mid-September until mid-October ー a highly controversial move that critics say is intended to keep MPs from avoiding a no-deal Brexit and plunged the British government into crisis once again, two months before a looming deadline.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2019.
The inventor of the nasal spray that can reverse an opioid overdose believes the $570 million judgment against Johnson & Johnson shows that states are taking the crisis "seriously."
On the back of a groundbreaking partnership with data heavyweights Deloitte and Nielsen, cannabis industry intelligence company Headset on Monday announced the launch of its real time analytics tool in the province of Alberta, marking its official debut in the Canadian market. Stakeholders anticipate the data Headset Insights generates ー first in Alberta, and eventually across all of Canada ー will serve as a road map for companies outside of cannabis looking to penetrate the industry, and for Canadian cannabis companies as the market grows more diverse and competitive.
An Oklahoma judge ruled that Johnson & Johnson pay over $570 million in damages — a far cry from the $17 billion requested — for causing the opioid crisis in the Sooner state.
The U.S. president reiterated his position that Russia should be invited back into the coalition of the world's largest economies despite the lingering issue of Russia's occupation of Ukrainian territory.
Speaking from the G7 summit in Biarritz, France, Trump said that Chinese negotiators had called U.S. officials and requested a new round of talks.
Gravy Analytics, a location-based marketing technology company, analyzed the smartphone data of people who attended the 111 solo Democratic presidential candidate events held in June and July.
The trade war between the U.S. and China escalated throughout the day Friday, culminating with President Trump announcing that the U.S. will significantly hike tariffs on nearly all Chinese imports. The decision came in response to China proclaiming earlier in the day that it would hit $75 billion worth of U.S. goods with new retaliatory tariffs.
