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Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran are in Jacksonville, holding an "education and COVID-19 briefing" soon. The last time they had an education roundtable in Jax, it ended up being completely about sports with no women panelists.
I'll be following this briefing closely. You can follow along here: https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/education/2020/10/20/live-updates-gov-desantis-hosts-education-briefing-jacksonville/5991268002/
âWe knew we needed to get kids back in the classroom ⊠the evidence was abundantly clear that schools are not drivers of the coronavirus and schools need to be open," DeSantis says the same week two Duval public schools are closed from outbreaks. @jaxdotcom
DeSantis calls teachers union lawsuits âbogus claims.â "Their goal was to keep kids out of school and they were wrong." For the record, the teachers union largely wanted to keep buildings closed. Not learning entirely...
âSchool closures should be off the table," DeSantis says. "They donât do anything to mitigate covid."
Duval Schools said just yesterday its campus closures were "preventative" to keep the spread from getting worse...
Duval Schools said just yesterday its campus closures were "preventative" to keep the spread from getting worse...
DeSantis: "Weâre also happy that fall sports have resumed. That would not have happened without our stateâs push."
Since the start of school, roughly a dozen Duval HS football games have been rescheduled bc of COVID-19. We've also seen baseball and volleyball teams impacted.
Since the start of school, roughly a dozen Duval HS football games have been rescheduled bc of COVID-19. We've also seen baseball and volleyball teams impacted.
DeSantis says rapid tests are becoming more accessible statewide. That it's being used at assisted living centers and administration could be replicated for family visitation, etc. Now is discussing "antibody cocktail" & therapeutic in the works until vaccine is widely available
DeSantis says Florida â and rest of country â continue to see decline in preventative healthcare visits, pediatric immunizations and cancer screenings. Urges people to continue visiting doctors' offices.
The gov. speaks on mental health, says he's identified additional funding and an announcement is coming in the next weeks on CARES Act funding for mental health services.
Richard Corcoran is at the podium now. He and DeSantis praise Jacksonville Classical Academy, where the conference is being hosted. JCA is a new charter school in Mixon Town. It's worth noting the school's COVID-19 numbers are not published anywhere publicly.
Eep! Corcoran just pulled out his "you can teach Plato under a tree, you don't need a fancy building," line. This didn't go over well last year: https://floridapolitics.com/archives/301071-corcoran-casey-jacksonville h/t @AGGancarski
Corcoran: âThe children in Florida are getting what they deserve and that is a world-class education." Says "hats off" to DeSantis for getting schools reopened. But it was Corcoran's five-day-per-week executive order that strongarmed school districts to reopen.
Some context on that â while Corcoran's EO mandate wasn't enforceable per say, school boards feared non-compliance would lead to cut funds: https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/education/2020/08/07/health-departments-guidance-refusal-puts-duval-double-bind-situation/3318500001/
Jacksonville Classic Academy Head of School David Withun says "The important part is that weâre [learning] together, not with a virtual screen or a plastic partition." Not sure if this means the charter school has none of those partitions the traditional public schools touted
Small observation: none of the folx speaking, standing next to each other are wearing masks 
Those speakers include two teachers who are presumably returning to class and the head of school.
We're talking about sports now! DeSantis wishes best of luck to the Rays.
Onto questions
OMG A reporter asked about the threshold for schools to close, referencing Duval's two closed campuses. DeSantis asked "why did they close?" And says he wasn't aware of the situation.
"I don't know what happened in those instances so I don't want to speak directly," DeSantis says. "You should not be quarantining healthy students ... that really is not the way you want to go." Suggests only symptomatic should stay home. This contradicts COVID-19 guidance.
A quick reminder that COVID-19 can be present without symptoms.
"With this disease you're not seeing them [students] be the main vectors. Usually it's the adults." Currently Fletcher, one of the campuses closed, has significant more positive students than staff.
"It's not our decision to close schools but we are not going to recommend school closures," DeSantis says. Adds that students aren't spreading transmission widely. But at Fletcher, for instance, the school district says a Homecoming party sparked 30+ new student cases.
The conference has ended... Um, wow.
I've updated this story but it's still developing for obvious reasons: https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/education/2020/10/20/live-updates-gov-desantis-hosts-education-briefing-jacksonville/5991268002/?nocache=1&fbclid=IwAR0eMOA24oQIBIZdPJWaRnb08dkGitf27VaSKoA8SdrWaTUlcI5tC4sSCk8
I've reached out to the school district as well as school board members for comment, but did not immediately hear back since the governor's briefing overlapped with a previously scheduled school board workshop meeting.
NEW: Duval County School Board Vice-Chair @andersen4dcps confirmed with me that the school district wasn't aware of Gov. DeSantis' visit ahead of time. "We learned about it when he appeared on the news."
