Good evening. We begin tonight with something Mr. Rogers used to tell children to do whenever they saw something scary on the news.

Look for the helpers, he would say. Well today with the school year starting and the news on COVID and younger people certainly scary enough for children and parents alike, where are the helpers?

That's the question tonight. In the case of Florida, some are being threatened by Governor Ron DeSantis with punishment for taking steps to protect children too, too young to be vaccinated.

Today, he not only stood by his ordered banning mask mandates in schools, his office today put out a statement warning of, quote,

financial consequences for noncompliance for dissenting school superintendents and school board members.

The most recent data shows the positivity rate in Florida for children under 12 at more than 20 percent and more than 24 percent for ages 12 through 19.

Because kids under 12 cannot be given the vaccine and public health experts have been pushing for mass squaring in schools, which in Florida puts them at odds with the governor.

Same for Texas where COVID hospitalizations are climbing so steeply that at one big hospital in Houston, tents are being set up in case they're needed to handle the overflow.

The school superintendent there recently proposed a mask mandate to be taken up by the board later this week in defiance of Governor Abbott's orders and schools in Dallas announced a mandate today in South Carolina, which also barred a section the governor Henry McMaster had this to say.

Shooting our state down closing schools and masking children who have no choice for the government to mask children to have no choice to protect adults who do have a choice is the wrong thing to do and we're not going to do it.

We're not going to shut our state down as other states did mandating mask is not the answer.

As for what is the answer he said personal responsibility and common sense are he went on to say that we are quote dealing with a virus that we know this year, which raises the question is he really.

And what makes him think he knows better than the doctors and nurses and educators and yes parents of school kids in his own state.

You could ask the same governor to sent us a Florida governor of Texas or the governors of the five other states the bar school districts are mandating mask wearing all except Arkansas where the governor of public and is trying to reverse the action he himself took for him common sense means facing facts.

And leaders have to adjust to the new facts that you're have and the reality of what you have to deal with and so I asked the legislature to redo the law that prohibited those requirements or those options for the school districts to protect the children.

And so it was an error to sign that law I admit that.

The run to census is doing the opposite our indicate joint is now from Palm Beach County with more so what more do we know about what governor to census is doing.

Well as you know Anderson the governor had issued this executive order in recent days which was banning mask mandates he did threaten to withhold funding from schools if they defied that order and as you said.

Today he took it a step further he said that the state board of ed could withhold salaries for superintendents and school board members who tried to push through mask mandates the governor's office saying that they are trying to tailor punishment to decision makers who led to the violation of law that's the exact quote.

Meanwhile Anderson already at least four school districts here in the state of Florida are defying the governor's order including Broward County which is the second largest school district in the state and also just today Leon County in Tallahassee the superintendent there had he is now issued a mask mandate but earlier he had sent a letter to the governor asking for autonomy and flexibility and that whole exchange went sideways because he ended up issuing that mask mandate today in response to the governor's threat to withhold his salary.

That superintendent in Leon County said you can't put a price tag on someone's life including my salary that's according to the Tallahassee Democrat.

Meanwhile the backdrop to all of this not only the hospitalizations that you mentioned and the positivity rates for children but Florida has been leading the nation among hospitalizations for children and adults and as you know the CDC is recommending universal masking for children and teachers as they return to school Anderson.

...