This week, a California school board president muttered over a live mic “F*** you” after a concerned parent was finished speaking out against vaccine mandates for students.
Lauren Roupoli addressed the board of the Los Alamitos Unified School District, where Board President Marlys Davidson told the audience before public discussion:
The board welcomes input from the public. This is the opportunity for community members to provide public comment to the board on agenda items or terms not listed on the agenda. Persons wishing to address the board should complete a speaker request card; each speaker is limited to a maximum of three minutes. Public comment is limited to a total of 30 minutes. A speaker may not relinquish his or her time to another; when addressing the board speakers are requested to address the board from the podium, state their name, and adhere to time limits.
The board may not take any action or discuss any item not appearing on the posted agenda and cannot immediately respond to public comments. Speakers are cautioned that under California law, no person is immune from liability for making intentionally false or defamatory comments regarding any person simply because those comments are made at a public meeting.
After a number of speakers had spoken, Roupoli started by saying, “My name is Lauren Roupoli and I am here as a concerned parent to urge you to be the first school to say no mandates for our children.”
“Let them be kids and enjoy one another,” Roupoli told the school board. “Let them breathe again and smile again. Emailing and calling, like you say, isn’t gonna help.”
“If you guys are aware, back in 2019, there was a bill passed by Pan, AB276, making it impossible for children to go to in-person school unless they were fully vaccinated as well as getting a medical exemption,” she recalled.
AB 276 stated:
Existing law prohibits the governing authority of a school or other institution from admitting for attendance any pupil who fails to obtain required immunizations within the time limits prescribed by the State Department of Public Health. Existing law exempts from those requirements a pupil whose parents have filed with the governing authority a written statement by a licensed physician to the effect that immunization is not considered safe for that child, indicating the specific nature and probable duration of their medical condition or circumstances, including, but not limited to, family medical history.
This bill would instead require the State Department of Public Health, by January 1, 2021, to develop and make available for use by licensed physicians and surgeons an electronic, standardized, statewide medical exemption request that would be transmitted using the California Immunization Registry (CAIR), and which, commencing January 1, 2021, would be the only documentation of a medical exemption that a governing authority may accept.
Roupoli stated, “If you remember parents pounding on walls at the state capitol in 2019 in hopes that their voices would be heard, their voices were shamed …”
After Davidson informed her that her time was up and Roupoli walked away, Davidson muttered, “F*** you.”
NBC News reported on Thursday:
KTLA reported Davidson had apologized and said in a statement that “when members of the public address the Board of Education, they must be heard with respect.” “I reaffirm my commitment to serve our community with dignity and integrity, and I hope they will accept my sincere apology,” Davidson said in the statement.