TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Cap News Service) – Gov. Ron DeSantis says he has not yet made a decision on whether students can return to the classroom before the school year ends.

His current order suspends on-campus learning through May 1, but he’s getting plenty of prompts to continue distance learning through the end of the school year.

Tallahassee Community College is already telling students and staff that summer classes will be online. Other colleges are waiting to make a decision.

When it comes to public schools, the decision will be a statewide one.

“It doesn’t mean that they are going to go back. But I think we just need to get down this road a bit further,” DeSantis said.

Florida’s teachers’ union wrote the governor, urging him to keep schools closed for the rest of the year despite what it says are ongoing problems with the availability of online learning.

“If we can assure the health and safety of our students and those who take care of students every day, then we can support the progress of going back to school. If we cannot, and that question is already answered, we cannot. We don’t have enough tests,” said Fedrick Ingram, President of the Florida Education Association.

A soon-to-be-announced task force will weigh in on the options, not only for the rest of this school year but for summer, fall and beyond as well.

“You know, maybe there’ll be an anti-viral developed. We don’t know how this thing is gonna – is there going to be this wave and then a second wave comes back in the fall? So there’s a lot of things that you need to be prepared for. So they are going to look at all this stuff with education,” DeSantis said.

In addition to the teachers’ union, the superintendent in Tallahassee wrote the governor on Wednesday, urging him to keep schools closed for the rest of the year.

The governor said any decision on when schools open with be made after consulting with superintendents and parents.

But for parents juggling working from home and homeschooling, a decision can’t come soon enough.

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