If there’s one thing conservatives make time for, it’s school board meetings. Especially if it’s an opportunity to spew hysteria about any remotely progressive idea or agenda. As highlighted by local outlet Arizona Family, a school board member went absolutely off the rails at a recent meeting by shouting about communism, global warming, and secret agendas in public schools. Member Jeremy Hoenack, who was elected to the board in the fall of 2020 and will serve through the end of 2024, was at the Litchfield Elementary School District Board meeting on Tuesday when he delved into a documentary he said he’d seen recently about public schools here in the United States. His time at the meeting was filled to the brim with conspiracy theories, inaccuracies, and telling his female colleague to “shut up.”
About three hours into the meeting, Hoenack summarized highlights from the documentary Whose Children Are They, which seems to be about the “hidden agenda” of public schools in the U.S. Hoenack said children were “parents’ children” before “communists got involved” in education. He went on to say schools were “infected” during the Carter administration and brought up the Russian Revolution and World War II. (Somehow, this isn’t the most unhinged part of his address.)
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After a lengthy beginning, Hoenack described global warming as a “myth” that was created by communists. He claimed that people have said we’re going to “freeze to death” for more than 70 years and that “not a single” disaster has happened. He said the current myth is about carbon negatively affecting the planet.
“I’m a physicist,” he said. “A scientist. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist. Just look at the data.” He suggested solar has a “100% correlation for a thousand years” and described sunspots and cosmic rays.
Looping this hysteria back to public schools, Hoenack said the “same people” who want to use global warming as a means to “destroy our economy” are trying to take over schools. He described “equity” as “plain communism.” He tossed out language about “preferential treatment” and a “license for corruption.” Venezuela also came up rather inexplicably.
Hoenack also tossed out the idea that President Joe Biden financed Vladimir Putin. After that, a fellow member of the school board (very politely) asked how any of this was relevant to the matters of the school board meeting, and he replied by telling them to “shut your mouth.”
“You know what?” Hoenack said. “You shut your mouth. I am talking about our schools and you don’t have the right to veto me.”
“I don’t have an understanding of how this relates to our schools,” she said.
“I’ll talk louder!” he said.
When the same board member asked how this connected back to their school district, Hoenack raised his voice and told her she wasn’t going to stop him. Another member stepped in, calling for “Decorum,” and Hoenack said the district was under criminal investigation and a lawsuit. He yelled things like, “You can’t stop me!” and seemed to refer to a fellow school board member as a “clown.”
A fellow board member motioned to adjourn the meeting, to which Hoenack responded by shouting to “shut the hell up” when the vote was called. He also pointed his finger at his peers off and on while shouting.
“Does the board care about parents?” he yelled just before the video ends.
As reported by Arizona Central back in May 2021, Hoenack described the only Black board member as a “cop-hater.” He also suggested that families who speak Spanish should speak only in English while at home. On his campaign website, he described the school district as being “infected” by critical race theory and suggested that schools were being “hijacked” by people who want to “brainwash” youth with “toxic ideology.”
If nothing else stands out to you about this, please let it be this sentiment: Pay attention to your school board and whenever possible, vote.
Here is that full school board meeting via YouTube.
And if you want to dive even deeper, here’s an interview Hoenack did on Fox News back in April 2021. Spoiler: He suggests there are many secrets and hidden agendas in the school district.