DeSantis Lets Parents Choose To Quarantine Or Send Kids Back To Class

Governor Ron DeSantis was joined by newly appointed State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to announce that the Florida Department of Health issued a new rule, allowing parents to decide whether their child should be taken out of school after an exposure to COVID.


Emergency Rule 64DER21-15 prevents exclusion of students from in-person schooling; gives rights to parents and legal guardians and their children; provides health protocols for symptomatic or COVID-19 positive students; and allows parents and legal guardians to choose which protocols to implement when their student has had direct contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19. It is effective as of today, September 22, 2021.

“Parents have the right to have their healthy kids in school,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “The idea that schools are somehow a big problem when it comes to spread of the virus has been refuted yet again. Not only is the forced quarantining of healthy children disruptive to a student’s education, but many folks in Florida are not able to work from home. With this rule, we are following a symptom-based approach to quarantining students in Florida.”

State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said “We must make sure that we are doing what is right for parents and for students. There’s not a single high-quality study that shows that any child has ever benefited from forced quarantining policies, but we have seen demonstrable and considerable harm to children.”

Last week Hendry County schools had 53 students quarantined, 31 from the elementary schools.

UPDATE: as of 9/27/2021 Hendry schools had 27 students quarantined, 7 from elementary schools

UPDATE: as of 10/1/2021 Hendry schools had 8 students quarantined

UPDATE: as of 10/8/2021 Hendry schools had 3 students quarantines, 3 tested positive