Thread by @FloridaEA

Have you heard?? @FloridaEA is announcing our lawsuit against @GovRonDeSantis, @EducationFL, @richardcorcoran et al at 1pm this afternoon.

You can tune in live on Facebook facebook.com/floridaea/ and follow this thread for live updates if you can't watch live.

@FloridaEA President @FedIngram is first to speak, he says through the lawsuit we are "Seeking to return control to where it belongs, to locally elected school board members and superintendents."

Ingram continues, "10,500 new Covid cases today. 90 new deaths reported today. Total new deaths over 5,000. That is backdrop under which we have an emergency order saying brick and mortar schools must be open 5-days a week. That is reckless and unconstitutional."

Ingram references the FL constitution which guarantees the right to a "safe, secure" public education before announcing the plaintiffs who are a group of educators statewide.

Ingram continues, "Nobody wants to be back in schools more than we do...but we want to do it safely. Once the rate of infection is under control and falling AND we have the resources we need, then and only then should we talk about reopening school campuses."

The next speaker is one of the named plaintiffs, @UTD_1974 teacher Mindy Festge whose son a high school student has an auto-immune disease.

"From my standpoint as a parent and as an educator, we must open virtually so that all of our children, all of our family members are safe,' Festge concludes.

The next speaker is @NEAToday President @Lily_NEA. She says it is a "false choice" to keep schools closed or to open them unsafely. "We can get through this if we support each other and put safety first."

"Why all this hurry without a plan to keep people safe? It makes no sense at all." says @NEAToday President @Lily_NEA. "We want to open schools safely. We don't want to make the pandemic worse."

"There is a time and a place and a way to do this safely. This will cost money, but we don't want it cost a life. We pray that the courts will put safety and life first," concludes @NEAToday President @Lily_NEA.

@Orange_CTA teacher Ladara Royal is next to speak. He says, "I stand up for the lives of teachers and all school workers...I never imagined that my call to be an educator would one day put my life at risk...We expect our leaders to be just and righteous."

The next speaker is a Covid survivor who spent 21 days on a ventilator and @BrowardTeachers teacher Stephanie Miller. "I, of course, want to go back to teaching. But it needs to be safe. Teaching online isn't optimal, but safety first."

@fedingram announces both the NAACP state conference and the national NAACP will join FEA in the lawsuit.

The next speaker is @AFTunion President @rweingarten. She starts by recounting the safeguards she had to go through on a recent flight. "Why are we not doing this for our school children," she asks? "No developed country sent their children back to school w/this level of virus."

@AFTunion President @rweingarten continues, "The number one job embedded in the FL Constitution is the sacrosanct obligation to keep their community safe. This lawsuit is about trying to get @GovRonDeSantis to actually do his job, not make a false choice btw education & safety."

The final speaker is lawyer Kendall Coffey to explain the legal argument being mad in the lawsuit. He says, "there is a constitutional right in Florida for students to have a safe and secure education. For sure, that is not available yet."

The second claim goes to the order itself, Coffey says. "It is confusing. It is arbitrary and capricious b/c it is not based on evidence. Most significantly it ignores information from its own files."

"The third theory is that we need an injunction before it is too late," says Coffey as he concludes the legal argument for the case.

Now @fedingram is recounting some statistics from @FloridaEA survey of educators before opening the call to questions from the press.

"Right now, all we have is a slogan: We must reopen schools. We need more than a slogan, we need a comprehensive plan," says @fedingram