During yesterday’s public hearing on Special Education, Senator María de Lourdes Santiago had a tense verbal meeting with the Associate Secretary for Special Education of the Department of Education (DE), Eliezer Ramos, who during her presentation asked to remove the mask.
The official asked for special permission before reading the presentation in question, complaining that “talking too much with a mask sometimes complicates things”.
At Ramos’ request, the pro-independence legislator replied: “We have to prepare, after all we will ask the boys and girls to wear the mask all day, so maybe we can make an effort, Mr. Secretary.”
The uncomfortable moment was captured in a video that has already toured on social networks and provoked a lot of criticism against the assistant secretary of the DE, as well as many applauded the intervention of the PIP senator.
Watch the video here:
During his presentation, Ramos stressed that the therapy services for students will be compensated in the summer academic session and in August. He added that families can coordinate the compensatory time with their respective therapists.
In the public system, a little more than 103,000 students belong to the program special education.