WASHINGTON — A special education advocate is expressing disappointment with Maryland education official Judy Docca after Docca took months to apologize for publicly using the word “retarded.”
Docca, a Montgomery County Board of Education member and retired educator, said she was sorry last week, after using the term over the summer.
“It’s disappointing that no other board member at that time called her out and that it took her four months to address,” said Selene Almazan, an attorney in Silver Spring, Maryland, who practices special education law.
Docca’s initial comment came during a July board meeting as she praised the intelligence of student board member Matthew Post.
“We got new material and he was able to dissect it right away and ask really pertinent questions,” she said. “It made me look really retarded.”
When Docca addressed the issue during last week’s meeting, she said, “I have to apologize to my colleagues and to staff for using a term that I should not have used. I referred to myself as being retarded because I forget everything. I really regret having done that, and there is no excuse for it.”
For Almazan, Docca’s comments fell flat.
“Her apology was to the wrong people,” Almazan said. “She should have apologized to those parents with children with disabilities as well as the community at large.”
The apology was apparently prompted by a scathing letter from Jeanne Taylor, who chairs the special education committee with the Montgomery County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations.
“Quite frankly, I was appalled,” Taylor wrote to the board earlier this month. “The term is so offensive that various public agencies — including those under the federal government — have stopped using it.”
Despite Docca’s apology coming so long after she used the term, her colleagues on the board thanked her for her contrition.
“We’re a community of learners and we can all learn from each other,” said board member Jill Ortman-Fouse. “Being able to talk about when we mistakes like that helps us all to create more awareness.”
Docca, 78, is running for her fourth term on the board next year. She has not yet responded to a request from WTOP for comment.
