Gov. Bill Lee responded to three losses in court last week by doubling down on the executive order that landed him in court and allows parents to opt-out of local school district mask mandates.

Of course, as a result of the court orders, the opt-out is essentially meaningless in the districts where the suits originated. Still, Lee is persisting in renewing an executive order he has previously admitted his administration has no intention of enforcing.

Chalkbeat has more on the renewal:

Gov. Bill Lee said Thursday he’ll extend his executive order allowing parents to opt their children out of following local school mask mandates that protect them against the coronavirus.

The 30-day extension will come despite rulings by three federal judges blocking his Aug. 16 executive order, which is due to expire on Oct. 5.

The judges in Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville sided with some parents who said the governor’s order violates federal law by creating unsafe learning environments for students with disabilities who are more at risk of severe illness from COVID.

The move by Lee comes even as a new CDC report indicates that Tennessee has lost the most school days of any state due to closures related to COVID-19.

The Tennessean has more:

Unsurprising to many students and parents, Tennessee has seen the most COVID-related school closures so far this school year according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study published. 

From Aug. 2 to Sept. 17, Tennessee saw more than 400 schools close for at least one day, according to the study released last week.

The New York Times reports that Lee’s continued non-response to COVID-19 is the result of a desire to avoid a challenge from the extreme right of his party, citing GOP state Senator and Dr. Richard Briggs from Knoxville:

“The governor [Bill Lee] understands completely the seriousness of the problem, and I think that hard decisions are being tempered by political realities, which is that he has an election next year,” and “Dr. Briggs described the surge of cases in Tennessee as a “completely self-inflicted crisis.”

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The Tennessee Lookout reports on the educators across the state who have died so far this school year from COVID-19. The count at the time of publication was 8, though getting an exact number is difficult because there is no central source keeping track of educator deaths related to the pandemic.

More:

At least eight Tennessee public school employees – three elementary school teachers, one pre-k assistant, a cafeteria worker, a bus driver and two high school teachers – have died since the school year began after contracting COVID-19. The total is an imperfect tally of a grim statistic that no one government agency or private entity is currently monitoring in a systematic way.

The educator deaths come as Gov. Bill Lee continues to attempt to stop mask mandates in local school districts. It’s also noteworthy that a number of districts around the state have closed recently in order to mitigate the spread of the virus.

Here’s how Tennessee Lookout went about determining the numbers so far:

The eight deaths were confirmed through family members, school staff, pastors, media reports and online obituaries. In each instance, the school employees had been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the days or weeks prior to their deaths, and in each case there is no definitive answer on where someone contracted the virus. Individual schools cited privacy rules in declining to comment about the causes of death among their staff members.

The story is a grim tale in a year where state policy expressly prevents districts from using remote learning options in order to mitigate COVID spread. Not only has Gov. Lee taken action to attempt to stop mask mandates, but he also visits schools without wearing a mask because, in his words, he’s “vaccinated” and “feels safe.” Of course regardless of vaccination status, it is possible to transmit the COVID-19 virus.

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Gov. Bill Lee certainly is. He signed an executive order today allowing contact sports like football to resume when school does.

He also says schools should reopen for in-person learning except in the most “extreme” circumstances.

No word yet on what the acceptable level of student or teacher COVID-19 cases is… or how many have to be sick (or even die) before the situation is labeled extreme by Gov. Lee.

And then there’s this news: