A teacher in South Florida has been fired for repeatedly refusing to wear a mask.
The school board in Broward County on Tuesday unanimously voted to fire John C. Alvarez, a science teacher at Piper High for gross insubordination.
Alvarez plans to appeal the decision to an administrative law judge, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The school board had required students and employees to wear masks in schools for most of the school year, citing a large number of COVID-19 cases, as well as guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has prohibited student mask mandates, leading to months of bitter legal disputes with Broward and other counties. DeSantis’ orders, which were codified into law by state lawmakers last month, do not apply to employees, only students.
Alvarez repeatedly refused to follow orders from his supervisors to wear a mask and he was fired for insubordination, even though the district no longer requires anyone to wear masks on school campuses, according to the school district.
“The fact that this is related to a mask and all the baggage that issue comes with is really not relevant to the complaint at hand, which is that there was gross insubordination by this employee to a directive by a supervisor,” said Marylin Batista, the school board’s interim general counsel.
(AP)
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11 Responses
We should applaud a public agency for terminating an employee who deliberately violated a clear School Board policy designed to protect kids. If he disagreed with the policy he could have resigned and found a job with other Florida schools that didn’t have such a requirement. Employees don’t get to decide the policy…that is for elected school board officials. Whether you personally agreed with the mask mandate or not, that was the rule.
I’m very happy to hear!
Gadolhadorah is as usual clueless about science. Masks do not work. Having a mandate is abusive and in no way should be followed.
Rules have to serve a practical purpose to be enforceable. For example, requiring employees to wear socks is unenforceable.
There’s little evidence that masks serve a practical purpose. Their purpose is further eroded by widespread availability of vaccines and treatment medication.
So that leaves masks as largely symbols of compliance. I don’t see the district winning the appeal.
Buggy> There’s little evidence that masks serve a practical purpose
chezky> Masks do not work.
There is enough evidence that good masks (such as K-95) work for individual use. The question is how masks work in real life where many people use funny masks, wear their nose out, etc. It is hard to measure given that we have different types of people mixing up together. A very interesting and long study experimented with giving different (or no) masks to people in separate, but similar, villages. Results are available in the paper below, showing a decrease in sickness. Look at CR discussion where we went over details of that.
Jason Abaluck et al The Impact of Community Masking on COVID-19: A Cluster-Randomized Trial in Bangladesh, Sep 2021.
Of course they want to mask up a SCIENCE teacher.
This teacher might share the TRUE science with the class.
Whether you agree or not with the science behind mask requirements, they are still recommended by the CDC and a judge will typically not second guess government agencies unless the ruling is totally arbitrary. A teacher does not get to decide which rules to follow and which to ignore. The efficacy of the masks is not the issue. His insubordination is and he was rightfully fired.
BS”D
Kol Ha Cavod to Mr. John C. Alvarez for refusing to participate in a lie.
As a science teacher, it is especially important that he does not wear a mask.
May he go from strength to strenth.
“Strenth” is a typo.
Didn’t Ron DeSantis abolish mask wearing in public places in Florida? I believe he stated any school mandating masks will lose public funding…
So the science teacher is right! He should atick.up for what is right. Student can’t learn from a masked up face. Facial expressions, lip movement adds alot to students absorbing what the teacher says… hearing muffled words through the masks won’t help.
Finally, a Teacher we have.