A Wednesday evening meeting in Lincoln ended in shouts, jeers and a slapped phone as parents and activists berated school board members over their response to a teacher’s alleged comments about the Charlie Kirk killing.
During the public comment period, parents and community members raised concerns about the quality of education at Mattanawcook Academy and the district’s hiring practices.
But the biggest fireworks came when comments turned to the subject of a teacher’s alleged comments about last week’s killing of conservative activist Kirk at Utah Valley University.
When news of those comments — reportedly made on Sept. 12 — began to spread late last week, a parent told a Bangor radio station that police officers denied her and four other mothers entrance into Mattanawcook Academy.
Dianne Buck, the chair of the Regional School Unit 67 board, reminded speakers to not identify district employees accused of misconduct and to keep their comments civil.
She called the first of many recesses after Tim Bodnar, a social media activist from Newport who livestreams school board meetings, identified two teachers and then went on to claim that “communist propaganda” was being used in social studies classes.
After the recess, Bodnar berated the school board, saying, “I will not play by your rules. I will not be silenced by you anymore.”
“He can have free speech; he just can’t have a job on taxpayer money,” he said about the teacher to the applause of the audience.
Bodnar then directly attacked Buck, calling her a “foul, evil woman.”
That prompted board member Andrew Funaro to fire back, saying, “Don’t you insult that woman. … she’s doing the best she can, and you don’t know what we think. We haven’t even made a decision yet.”
Bodnar and Funaro then got into a heated back and forth, shouting over each other. Then Buck called another recess, and when the board returned and concluded the public comment period, it turned its attention to other matters.
That all went smoothly until just before the student representative prepared to present his report. The crowd began calling for more time to comment, and a man approached the podium to tell the audience that “we are 100% being disrespected by our elected representatives” before police escorted him out of the room.
Bodnar then began shouting for the board to let the man speak.
“You should go back down south and get some more clicks on your little YouTube,” Funaro told him. “Isn’t that what this is about?”
After more shouts and jeers, Buck moved to adjourn the meeting.
But before the livestream ended, Bodnar, who was walking around the room filming with his phone, got into an altercation with Funaro, who slapped the phone out of his hand. Police quickly came between the two, and an officer escorted Funaro from the room.
While tensions have run high during school board meetings since the COVID-19 pandemic, the killing of Kirk on Sept. 11 turned the temperature back up. Many people from late night hosts to TV pundits to teachers have faced a harsh backlash over negative comments about Kirk in the days since his death.
Kirk, who was the co-founder and CEO of Turning Point USA, a prominent booster group for President Donald Trump, was visiting Utah Valley University in Orem as the first stop on his America Comeback tour.
The alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, fired a single shot with a rifle from a rooftop before fleeing and blending into the campus crowd.
He turned himself in to police on Sept. 12. He had no known criminal history.
Robinson’s family have said that he had become more political, but Utah Gov. Spencer Cox stressed Sunday that it’s too early to speculate about a motive.
Last weekend, hundreds gathered from Bangor to Portland to remember the 31-year-old. At least one vigil — organized by a student group at Bowdoin College in Brunswick — was postponed because of an unsubstantiated threat.
