A Florida chiropractor signed more than 500 medical exemption waivers for children whose parents did not want them to wear masks in Sarasota County Schools.
Dan Busch, a Venice, Fla. chiropractor, signed about one-third of all of the school’s received exemptions, communications director Craig Maniglia said Wednesday.
On Monday, Sarasota schools implemented a mask-wearing mandate requiring the personal protective equipment indoors unless submitting a release from a medical professional.
Parents said word of Busch’s office handing out pre-signed forms had spread quickly. The papers, they said, sat stacked on a desk in the chiropractor’s office and were handed out without children undergoing any exams. As a result, dozens of parents lined up outside this week, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Because of the glaringly inflated number of submissions, the district modified its policy to specify better who could sign a medical exemption. The county school system said moving forward, it would only accept forms signed by medical doctors (MDs), osteopathic physicians (DOs), and advanced registered nurse practitioners (ARNPs), according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Superintendent Brennan Asplen said the policy change would help the district “be consistent in our consideration of whether medical reasons warrant individuals to be exempt from the policy and to prevent abuse.”
Critics said the schools’ new policy wrongly dismisses certain physicians’ credentials as legitimate.
The district has not said whether it would accept the hundreds of falsified exemption forms it’s already received.
Officials locked down Ashton Elementary School Tuesday after a parent made good on threats to show up at the school and confront a principal because it would not allow his children inside without masks. Instead, police met Christopher Kivlin outside and ordered him to stay away from the campus.
“I found out after the fact that the school had to go into lockdown,” Kivlin told WFLA, blaming his built-up emotions. “That’s horrible. I feel like I might have scared other parents.”
Florida’s education department began a roundabout way of withholding funds equal to educators’ salaries from districts where officials implement mask mandates in defiance of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order. A state judge ruled the governor’s ban unconstitutional. The Biden administration has opened civil rights investigations and promised to reimburse penalized officials through COVID relief funds.
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