A second-grade student from Florida could have to repeat the year at school after she received more than 30 suspensions for refusing to wear a mask.
The Tampa Free Press reports that 7-year-old Fiona Lashells refused to comply with the school district’s mask mandate on at numerous occasions and was suspended for 36 days total. According to her mother Bailey Lashells, Fiona is “on a mission to take back not only her rights but every American child’s constitutional rights from the tyrant school board.”
On Aug. 31, according to Bailey, Fiona was told to eat her lunch alone in an office hallway at the school and later received the extensive suspension.
“Fiona is a strong-minded and fearless young girl who was ready to conquer the world at 7,” said Lashells. “Unfortunately, the blows just seem to not stop as she was recently told after completing every assignment her teacher will provide that she is not only failing 2nd grade but that there is no way she could catch up, per her teacher.”
Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has taken a hard-line stance against masks even as his state remains a hotbed of COVID-19, even brought along the second-grade student for an appearance on Fox & Friends this week. “I’m not wearing a mask because you touch it, and you have germs on your hand,” said Fiona Lashells. “And then you put it on your face and breathe in all the germs.”
DeSantis famously signed a law earlier this year to ban schools from requiring students to wear masks, although some school boards have defied the order out of safety concerns. In August, he threatened to withhold pay of any school officials who enforced mask mandates in Florida.
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