On Wednesday, Leon County Judge ruled that schools in Florida State will be capable of ordering students and staffers to use face coverings while the lawsuit against the southeastern-most U.S. State’s ban on school face mask directives plays out, halting Florida’s effort to penalize schools that had enacted face-covering instructions after the prohibition went back into effect when Florida appealed a ruling striking it down.

John C. Cooper, Leon County Judge, ruled in favor of the Florida parents who brought the suit against Florida State, who asked the Court to strike down a stay that reserved the face mask mandate ban in effect.

Florida then appealed that ruling which caused an automatic stay that, for the time being, blocked the ruling as the legal action played out and let DeSantis’ state move forward with intentions to withhold funding from State districts imposing masking mandates.

Hearing is getting underway in Florida school #mask mandate case: parents suing the state are asking judge to vacate the stay on his order overturning Gov’s mandate ban. Basically, if judge rules for parents, there’d be nothing stopping local districts from requiring masks #WESH

— Bob Hazen WESH (@HazenWESH) September 8, 2021

Cooper lifted an automatic stay of his verdict in the past week that GOP governor Ron DeSantis and State educational authorities overstepped their authority by forcing the blanket ban through executive order labeling defiant pro-face-mask local educational institution boards with financial penalization.

13 School Boards Adopted Face Mask Requirements

Moreover, Leon County Circuit Judge said the overwhelming proof before him in litigation by parents challenging Florida governor ban is that using face-covering does provide some protection for school children, particularly those below twelve for whom no jab yet exists.

The problem came to a head due to a recent increase in infections caused by the highly transmissible and lethal Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2.

During a hearing, Cooper said that they’re not in regular times. They’re in an epidemic. They have a deadly COVID-19 variant that’s more contagious and scarier to children than the one they had in 2020.

Since Ron DeSantis signed the required face mask ban order on 30th July, thirteen school boards representing over 50% of Florida’s 208M students have adopted face mask requirements with an exemption only for health reasons.

Furthermore, Florida education officers have started going after rebellious school board member’s remunerations as punishment.

In addition to the measures targeting schools, Arizona, Montana, Iowa, Texas, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida had also banned local administrations from forcing face mask mandates, as had Arkansas State before the law was broken along with the educational institutions’ prohibitions.

Read Also: Florida’s DeSantis Appeals Leon County Judge’s Ruling On Masking in Schools