DeSantis, Barber disagree over school reopening date
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Oct. 13 that the state “never mandated” a reopening date for Santa Rosa County schools after Hurricane Isaias, a day after Superintendent Karen Barber said the state directed them to reopen Oct. 14.
The district now plans to reopen schools Oct. 19 after the School Board voted unanimously to push the date back from Oct. 14.
“I didn’t know what their schedule was going to be. We never mandated them to do anything,” DeSantis said at a press briefing at a distribution site in Jay Oct. 13. “I do think that the school district was slow to clean the schools.”
DeSantis said state crews sent to help found schools locked and had to get the district to unlock them before cleaning could begin. He called it misinformation that he had given the superintendent instructions, saying he did not know her and had never spoken with her.
“I think it’s incumbent upon officials to be working to get everything back to normal as quickly as possible,” he said. “So don’t sit on your hands.”
He added that he expected schools across about 90% of the region to reopen Oct. 14, though he said that some schools were badly damaged.
One reporter asked DeSantis whether the state could retaliate against the district over the delay. DeSantis called that “manure.”
“There is no evidence for that,” he said.
The dispute dates to Sunday after the storm. On Oct. 11, DeSantis held a press briefing at the Waffle House in East Milton where he said schools could reopen Oct. 14.
On the same day, according to Superintendent of Schools Karen Barber at a school board meeting on Oct. 13, she asked the state’s Department of Education to keep schools closed until Oct. 19.
“That was my request. The direction I got was school needs to resume on Tuesday,” Barber told the board. She said the department later agreed to Oct. 14.
On Oct. 12, in her first public comments since the hurricane made landfall, Barber spoke at a briefing at the Emergency Operations Center in Milton.
“Under the direction of Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education, we have been informed that we need to be back in school Wednesday,” she said. “All school districts in the Panhandle that have been affected by this storm were directed to open school on Wednesday.
At the board meeting, Barber said the state DOE had told the district it must open schools but could decide which ones were safe. She said some schools were safe, but bus transportation was not, and that repeated conversations with the state had not changed her position.
“My concern was employees, transportation, safety, and just the overall restoring households to normal with power and water, and finding the resources they need,” Barber said.
She added she understood the state’s aim of giving families the option for their kids to return to school.
School Board attorney Terry Harmon told members of the board that policy already lets the superintendent close schools in an emergency and the board could direct a closure without a formal motion.
Schools will reopen Monday, Oct. 19.