Armor Persons

If a Lee County School Board member’s peers agree, local schools may not only support Florida’s plan to end vaccine mandates for students, but implement such an initiative on its own.

Lee County School Board Member Armor Persons said Tuesday he will bring forward a resolution to remove mandatory vaccines for students within the district.

He said while the state is looking at removing requirements for several vaccines, there are other inoculations mandated in statutes that may not be part of the state effort initially.

“This is parental rights,” Persons said. “A parent should be making that decision if a child should take a vaccine or not.”

He said that the district has on the side of parental rights concerning requiring masks at school during the pandemic, among other issues.

“I think we should stay consistent,” Persons said.

If the resolution passes, Persons said he believes it should be put on the district’s legislative agenda to ask legislators to remove mandatory vaccines period.

Among the reasons he provided was that they do not know whether the vaccines cause autism or not, as 22 years ago it was one in 150 children diagnosed with autism. Now it is one in 31.

“Something is going on. Until we know, people should be more cautious than they are now,” Persons said. “I am sure there will be some people against it, and some people for it.”