This is personal
My sister is my best friend. We have always been close — so close that we often call each other at the exact same moment and get a busy signal. She was my “honor attendant” at my wedding, and she’s also the genius responsible for helping to bring my drag queen alter ego to life:
Anyway… besides being my absolute bestie/drag mother, she is also an incredible artist and teacher. She shares her gifts with the next generation as an art instructor in Fort Myers, Florida. For the past five years, she has worked in a public school that serves predominantly children of color and students from low-income households. In any given week, about 500 kids in grades K-5 come through her classroom.
Naturally, as the COVID-19 situation in Florida has grown dire, I’ve been following the state’s plans to re-open schools. I won’t mince words: it is a steaming hot mess. Cases are climbing, and yet just last week the Florida Department of Education issued Emergency Order 2020-EO-06, which requires the August opening of “brick and mortar schools at least five days per week for all students.”
Whaaaat?!? 🤯
Now, the point of this post isn’t to explain why the Emergency Order makes no sense (given the current COVID-19 caseload in Florida 📈), or why it flouts local decision-making 🤷♀️. And don’t even get me started on how the county-based school board system in Florida creates a diffusion of responsibility and impedes democratic accountability…
Instead, I want to show you ONE OF THE MOST INSANE DOCUMENTS I’VE EVER SEEN:
If you haven’t already, please take a few moments to read it.
So, what is this? It is a public school district asking its employees to agree to “assume the risks associated with” going back to work onsite in the midst of the raging COVID-19 pandemic. Umm…
As far as I can tell, the only reason a school district would ask its employees to sign a waiver like this would be to limit the district’s liability if an employee (or an employee’s family member) were to get COVID-19. The waiver says that it is not “intended to create or impact any contractual rights or benefits,” but it says nothing about an employee’s ability to sue for a district’s negligence. In other words, if the district neglected to take necessary steps to keep its employees safe, this waiver basically says, “Too bad!”
Full disclosure: I am not licensed to practice law in the State of Florida, and I haven’t studied its tort system in depth. But this waiver smells very, very fishy to me. 🐟
If I were an employee of the School District of Lee County, I would ask the district for answers — in writing — to the following questions:
Was the district’s legal counsel involved in drafting the waiver?
Please explain what are the intended legal effects of the waiver? For example, is it intended to limit the district’s liability for negligence or other potential tort claims?
How many employees have already been asked to sign the waiver? How many have signed it?
Will employees be asked to sign the waiver if/when schools re-open in early August?
What will the district do if an employee declines to sign?
Is the district going to seek similar waivers from its students and their families?
Most importantly, I would not sign that waiver form until the district explained what it is trying to accomplish.