COURAGE

Joy Prevor, chair of the Education Committee, DNA, published the following open letter in the Miami Herald, It Takes Courage, addressing the important issue of schools during these difficult times. This coming Sunday Downtown News will publish a more comprehensive report.

Dear Miami-Dade County School Board Members,

Over the last eighteen months, you have continued to educate our kids under the toughest of circumstances. Administrators adapted to new realities and constantly changing guidelines. Educators learned new teaching modalities and technologies. Through these challenges, the public school system and each and every one of its educators remains fully committed to its goal: ensuring that our greatest treasures fulfil their potential through education, enrichment and value-building.

Today, YOU — the leaders of our school system — can take pride in your achievements and in successfully serving as role models for the young generation. As role models, today you have the opportunity to demonstrate an incredibly important value: COURAGE.

Our children deserve courageous role models. Leaders who have the courage to stand up to bullies and wrongdoers. The courage to stand for what’s right. The courage to protect those in your care, even if it puts your resources at risk. The courage to fight against politically motivated grandstanding that defies a broad medical consensus and puts young lives at risk.

Please demonstrate your courage by requiring masks while indoors at Miami-Dade County Public Schools, until such time that the CDC changes its current guidelines.