Florida Will Pay for Parents to Move Kids Into New Schools if They Experience ‘COVID-19 Harassment’

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The Florida state Board of Education unanimously approved a rule that would pay parents to move their kids to new schools if they experience “COVID-19 harassment.”

On the heels of Governor Ron DeSantis’ executive order kneecapping school mask mandates, the state’s education arm has moved to provide scholarships if kids who don’t mask or otherwise shirk Covid protocols experiemce harassment, reports the Tampa Bay Times:

Parents can now claim “COVID-19 harassment” over a district’s COVID-19 rules and apply for a Hope scholarship to transfer kids to another school of their choice. Specifically, a parent can apply for a voucher in “instances where a child has been subjected to COVID-19 harassment will provide parents another means to protect the health and education of their child by moving their child to another school.”

The state has defined “COVID-19 harassment” broadly: “any threatening, discriminatory, insulting, or dehumanizing verbal, written or physical conduct an individual student suffers in relation to, or as a result of, school districts protocols for COVID-19, including masking requirement, the separation or isolation of students, or COVID-19 testing requirements.”

Furthermore, the rule says “unnecessarily isolating, quarantining, or subjecting children to physical COVID-19 constraints in schools poses a threat to developmental upbringing and should not occur absent a heightened showing of an actual illness or serious risk of illness to other students.”

Several states have banned mask mandates, even as cases have surged due to the spread of the more virulent Delta variant.