Board of Education Member Julie Yang recently announced her candidacy for County Council District 1. What is her motivation?
I’m running for the County Council to put Montgomery County back on track.
Ms. Yang was elected to the Board of Education since 2022. Since that time—
- The Washington Post broke the Beidleman scandal (2023). Beidleman’s predation was going on for six years before that with numerous complaints submitted to MCPS.
- Former superintendent Monifa McKnight was paid $1.3 million in severance pay even though there were serious allegations that she covered up the entire Beidleman affair (2024).
- MCPS paid millions in legal fees in a series of court battles over the forced LGBT curriculum, only to lose it all in the US Supreme Court.
- The Office of Inspector General released a report demonstrating that MCPS has not been performing background checks (2025).
That’s quite a bit of failure for a board member serving for only 2½ years, and even Board President in the 2024–2025 school year.
Given these lapses, can we really believe that she will protect workers from abuse, and that she will not reward cover-ups with severance pay? Most importantly, can we trust her to do the background checks on employees working with children in the county’s pools and sports teams?
This candidacy is completely insane. My guess is that someone is putting her up to this exposure in order to split the vote intended for someone else’s campaign. Hopefully I’m wrong; if I’m right, what is she getting in return? Regardless, if Ms. Yang wants to put anything “back on track,” she should start with the public school system whose leadership she shares.
[Updated August 12 2:37 PM to correct the office for which Ms. Yang is running and to add mention of the legal fees paid by MCPS.]
