Board of Education VP Karla Silvestre Tries to Silence BOE Member Judy Docca During Sept. 9th Meeting as Docca calls out NBC4 and newspapers reporting on MCPS' COVID Response

At the September 9, 2021, Montgomery County Board of Education meeting Agenda Item 7.1 called for a discussion of MCPS' Health Contingency Plan.

At the beginning of the discussion Board of Education members were commenting on where MCPS was on their COVID-19 response.  

Watch the video clip below to hear what BOE member Docca had to say:   

Later in the discussion, Board of Education President Brenda Wolff leans over to Board Vice President Karla Silvestre and speaks to her. 

VP Silvestre then gets up out of her chair and walks over to BOE member Judy Docca who can be heard speaking on her open microphone.  

BOE member Judy Docca says: "Oh, I know you're not going to tell me not to do this."

VP Karla Silvestre replies: "She says you can ask it after the..."

Docca: "What?"

VP Silvestre: "She said if you can ask your question after they do the..."

Docca: "No, nobody else has had to do that. 

OK.  I have to do this. I feel a need to do this. I was not trivializing the effect or the traumatic effect on parents when a child has COVID.  I was trying to emphasize that the number is small here. 

But the newspapers and NBC, in particular, I don't watch ABC and CBS, have said oh, it's over 1,000 in Montgomery County and how terrible it is.  And it's a very negative kind of response and it would be worse if our staff was not doing all the things they're doing. Which are being criticized, even today about how strict we are and we're not doing what CDC says, and how do we have the right to do that. 

So, I feel really strongly that I had to say that and that's what I was trying to get at.  Maybe I should have said all those things before I said anything about the 1%."