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One Thursday this fall, a middle schooler in Floridaâs Brevard Public Schools received an in-school suspension. He had ripped off another studentâs face mask and blown into a peerâs face. That same day, six other students across the district were written up for not wearing their masks correctly (including one who also faked using hand sanitizer), while an elementary school student was assigned three days of âprivate diningâ for sharing food in violation of safety guidelines. Meanwhile, an e-learning student got in trouble for filming another student during class without permission.
In many ways, that Thursday was emblematic of a new age of discipline, with multiple students across the district getting written up for infractions that didnât exist the school year before. Students removed their masks, chatted inappropriately in Zoom and failed to socially distance. In all, about 11 percent of discipline incidents outlined in detail from the start of the school year in late August to mid-September were in some way related to the coronavirus pandemic and the districtâs new requirements for in-person and virtual instruction, according to records that Brevard Public Schools provided to The Hechinger Report/HuffPost.Â