440 students told to quarantine in Palm Beach County just 2 days into new school year
Parents worry about kids' recovery from COVID slide
Administrators at the Doctors of Academics Tutoring in Tampa said they've seen a growth in enrollment this year of kids whose parents want to make sure they don't experience the so-called COVID slide.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - In some Florida counties, students and teachers who returned to classrooms only days ago are already under a COVID-19 quarantine.
Palm Beach County officials said they ended the second day of classes with 440 students sent home to quarantine because of 51 cases detected among staff members and students.
Face masks are mandatory for students and staff in Palm Beach public schools; however, parents can opt their children out of wearing facial coverings, per Gov. Ron DeSantis' executive order.
RELATED: Four Broward teachers die of COVID-19, days before school year begins, union says
A spokesperson for the School District of Palm Beach County told WPTV that out of the roughly 167,000 students in the district, 6,394 students opted out of wearing masks.
Meanwhile, Orange County's school system reported 333 total cases after classes began this week, with 20 teachers and 39 students still quarantined.
Parents take their challenge against the governor's mask mandate ban to court
The fight over mask mandates in Florida schools is reaching the courtroom. The governor's ban on mandates is at the center of a lawsuit filed by parents across the state, including in the Bay Area.
The news comes as Gov. Ron DeSantis' ban on mandatory school mask policies faces a challenge from parents in court.
RELATED: Florida parents head to court to challenge DeSantis’ executive order on mask mandates in schools
On Friday, Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper is scheduled to hear a lawsuit brought by parents from several large school districts who are asking that limits be lifted on mandatory masking as children across Florida are returning to school.
DeSantis has repeatedly said it should be up to parents to decide whether their children will wear masks in classrooms. But with infections from the delta variant surging, some school districts are following guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instead. The CDC recommends that everyone wear masks indoors in places where the risk of contagion is high.
The lawsuit says the mask ban violates Florida's constitution, which grants power solely to local school boards to operate, control, and supervise classes within their districts.
The parents also claim that while it may be safe to operate schools in some areas of the state without masks, it is not safe to do so in "crisis" areas of Florida which include Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, St. Petersburg, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
The parents who brought the lawsuit are from Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Orange, Alachua, Hillsborough, and Pinellas counties.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.