A Florida school district is looking into allegations that a chiropractor is providing exemptions to the district’s mask mandate to anyone who asks for one—without even meeting with students.
Video taken by WFLA—a Tampa-based television news station—shows dozens of parents and students waiting in a line outside Twin Palms Chiropractic Health in Venice, where Dr. Dan Busch has allegedly signed dozens of exemption forms in the past week, as Sarasota County’s mask mandate has gone into effect, the station reported.
After hearing claims that the office was giving exemptions to anyone who wanted one, one local mother, Paulina Testerman, was shocked, the WFLA reported. She decided to investigate the claims herself, going in to ask for an exemption.
She said that when she was there, no one even asked to see her kids.
“The forms were pre-signed. There was a stack behind the counter, and they were just passed out,” she told WFLA.
Sarasota County Schools told the station they are aware of and concerned about the situation.
Spokesperson Craig Maniglia said the district has received “a fair amount of exemption forms” from the practice that are being looked into.
However, Busch dismissed these allegations. He said he always meets with students and their guardians to determine if they qualify for an exemption before he provides one and that he is not anti-mask or anti-vaccine, but that he is “pro-freedom.”
“I myself, I will tell you I have not given exemptions to any parents that I have not met with,” he said to WFLA.
Newsweek reached out to the Twin Palms Chiropractic, Sarasota schools, and Testerman for comment Tuesday morning but had not heard back by publication. This story will be updated with any response.
Earlier in August, Sarasota County became the first Trump-won county to defy Governor Ron DeSantis’ now-overturned ban on mask mandates due to concern over rising COVID-19 cases in the district, Newsweek previously reported.
“With COVID going through there, that’s not safe,” Shirley Brown, a school board member who voted for the mandate, previously told Newsweek. “When you have to quarantine the students who are nearby, you have to have so many students out.”
COVID-19 cases in Sarasota County have been increasing since July and many hospitals in the area reaching ICU capacity, according to data from The New York Times. On Monday, the county had a 7-day-average of 482 new cases per day, compared to an average of 202 one month earlier.
DeSantis’ high-profile battle over whether or not school districts can mandate mask wearing went to court last week, where Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper ruled the Republican governor overstepped his authority.
DeSantis and other opponents of mask mandates argued that mandates would violate a new Florida law—the Parents’ Bill of Rights—that gives parents total control to make health-related decisions for their children, but Cooper pointed out that there are exemptions to the law when it involves protecting the public’s health.
Several school districts in the state had imposed mask mandates in defiance of DeSantis’ order before Cooper’s ruling.
On Monday, DeSantis pledged to appeal the ruling, arguing that schools mandating masks has “basically taken away the right of parents” to make that decision.
CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images
