Entertainment

SNL Hilariously Demonstrated The Utter Chaos Of School Board Meetings These Days

“I am concerned and I am also crazy...”

by Morgan Brinlee

Saturday Night Live is back for its 47th season and is once again drawing inspiration from recent news stories. In the premiere episode, SNL poked fun at how disorderly and chaotic school board meetings have become during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic thanks largely to misinformation and conspiracy theories.

“Now we know there have been lots of questions about the school district’s Covid safety policy so we open the floor to the public,” SNL cast member Ego Nwodim, who plays an unnamed school board member, said in the sketch. But while the school board hoped to keep discussions focused on Covid-19, the extremist parents and community members in attendance seem unable to stop themselves from launching into nonsensical rants or from spreading misinformation.

“I am concerned and I am also crazy; let’s begin,” SNL’s Cecily Strong said before her character launches into an unintelligible rant about vaccines, Dr. Anthony Fauci, 5G, and Israel. When Strong’s character is asked to clarify whether or not she has a question about her child’s safety, she admits she’s not even a parent. “I don’t have a child and I don’t live in this town,” she said, a reference to reports that some school board members have been accosted by people without children who live outside the school district.

Finally, the school board is able to get the microphone turned over to an actual parent with a question about Covid-19 vaccines. “I’m confused. My son can't play football because they said the vaccine he got wasn’t valid,” they said. “He got Mike's Hard vaccine.”

Next, the school board is forced to thwart an attempt to hijack the meeting’s agenda from a community member who proves to be not as knowledgeable as she likely thinks she is. “I’m so mad I’m literally shaking right now,” they said. “Forget Covid, the real threat is critical race theory being taught in our schools. My question is, what is it and why am I mad about it?”

Later, a father questioned if schools will “treat” Covid-19-positive students with “Ivertipecitraz,” which he claimed was “a hormone given to elephants in captivity to boost sperm production” that “cured” his case of Covid-19 in “basically half a day.”

“My son took it and had no adverse effects,” the father said before the camera panned to a young boy with a full beard sitting in the audience.

Recently the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has had to urge people not to attempt to use Ivermectin, an anti-parasite medicine used to treat parasite-caused infections in horses, in an attempt to either treat or prevent Covid-19.

SNL’s sketch comes as school districts across the country have seen school board meetings turn aggressive and confrontational. In Tennessee, anti-mask parents swarmed and threatened school board members and parents who voiced support for Covid-19 policies like universal masking in the parking lot following an August meeting. In Mesa County, Colorado, the Associated Press reported school board members had to be escorted to their vehicles by law enforcement when order could not be restored at an August 17 board meeting.