Florida principal who fought DeSantis over weakening Covid rules in schools dies from virus

A Florida school principal who challenged the push for reopening schools after a Covid surge in the state in 2020 has succumbed to complications from long Covid.

Jimbo Jackson, 55, was serving as the head of Fort Braden School when he tested positive for the virus in July 2020 and had seen the death of two employees from Covid in the school premises.

He also served as the commissioner at Leon County for nearly six years in addition to his duties as a principal.

Leon County administrator Vince Long condoled Jackson’s death and said everyone was “just devastated”.

“Jimbo really made everything and everybody better. And we’re just saddened and heartbroken — and more than anything else, we’re just devastated for his family,” Mr Long said.

Jackson “just had amazing empathy,” he added.

“And I think that came from his many years of experience being a principal at a Title I school. He saw everything first-hand, the struggles that people deal with. And he had the very unique perspective to see it play out generationally, because he taught and was principal for kids and their parents and their uncles and their aunts,” Mr Long told the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper.

The principal had strongly contested the push for reopening schools by governor Ron DeSantis in 2020 and said those attending school – “our students, staff and personnel” – were not a “gamble” he was willing to take.

As a school leader, he had said he could not “continue to see my school family mourn our friends and then tell them that he can keep them safe when they come to school”.

“That would certainly be a lie and a slap in the face to the Byrd and Bradwell families [the school employees who had died from Covid] as they grieve and plan memorial services for angels gone too soon,” the principal had said back then.

“With what the Fort Braden School community has already endured, I cannot support a return to brick and mortar school and respectfully call on our state leaders to postpone the return of students to school buildings until such time as it is reasonably safe for all members of our school communities. Our students, staff, and personnel are not a gamble I am willing to take when lives hang in the balance.”

City mayor John Dailey said Tallahassee will pay tribute and honour Jackson’s contribution as a teacher for more than 30 years and then as a commissioner by flying flags at half mast for 10 days.