EUHSD Board Puts Ethnic Studies Pilot at Risk
Ethnic studies must be offered by the 2025-26 school year, but the district may not have time for a pilot course
At the May 14, 2024 board meeting, Board President Christi Knight, and board members Bob Weller and David Vincent, voted against approving the ethnic studies pilot proposed by the district, while board members Bill Durney and Ryan Williams voted in favor of the pilot.
The proposed pilot was the result of over 2 years of work by the Ethnic Studies Committee. Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services, Dr. Martin Casas, had stressed over several meetings that failure to approve the pilot before summer break would make it difficult to prepare the pilot for next spring.
During the Tuesday, June 18 board meeting, the recently formed ethnic studies advisory committee will provide an update that may shed light on whether the district will have time to prepare for a pilot next spring.
You can view the agenda for the meeting here. Details are below for attending the meeting in person or online. Comments can be made online here until 1pm on June 18.
6pm Tuesday, June 18, 2024
EUHSD Board Room (map)
302 North Midway Drive
Escondido, CA 92027The meeting will also be available to livestream here.
California’s ethnic studies legislation
EUHSD had prepared an ethnic studies pilot curriculum in preparation for meeting the state’s new ethnic studies requirements, signed into law by Governor Newsom in October 2021. California’s Assembly Bill 101 (AB 101) added “the completion of a one-semester course in ethnic studies, meeting specified requirements, to the graduation requirements commencing with pupils graduating in the 2029–30 school year.” Additionally, the bill requires high schools “to offer an ethnic studies course commencing with the 2025–26 school year”.
In a letter to the California State Assembly dated October 8, 2021, Newsom wrote:
“Ethnic studies courses enable students to learn their own stories, and those of their classmates, and a number of studies have shown that these courses boost student achievement over the long run - especially among students of color.”
The Ethnic Studies Committee
Knowing they needed to offer an ethnic studies course by the 2025-26 school year, the district formed a committee in early 2022 to begin planning a pilot course to be offered in the spring of the 2024-25 school year. It is EUHSD’s policy to pilot new curriculum to get feedback from teachers before asking the board to approve materials for a new course.
The district may pilot instructional materials, using a representative sample of classrooms for a specified period of time during a school year, in order to determine how well the materials support the district's curricular goals and academic standards. Feedback from teachers piloting the materials shall be made available to the Board before the materials are adopted.
-EUHSD Board Policy 6161.1
The Ethnic Studies Committee was composed of 15 teachers representing all 5 high schools who possess relevant qualifications to teach ethnic studies. According to Rita Alatorre, Community Relations Officer for EUHSD, all 15 teachers “have either a Social Science credential, English credential, or both English and Social Science credentials (Humanities)”.
Curriculum development process
Starting in February 2022, the Ethnic Studies Committee met monthly and created 6 units of study by the end of the year. According to the district, “discussions and workshops were facilitated by an EUHSD Content Specialist (Certificated Manager).” Also according to Alatorre, responding on behalf of the district, “Draft copies of the work in progress were shared with school board members along the way, although the composition of the board membership changed during the process.”
Before the pilot course was presented to the board for approval, it went through a process that included Site Curriculum Councils (SCC), District Subject Area Councils (DSAC), and the Independent Program Review Committee (IPRC).
SCC is made up of a school's principal, head counselor, and department chairs. Members of the SCC keep teachers in relevant departments informed about new or updated curriculum and materials and bring any teacher concerns about curriculum and instructional materials back to the council.
DSAC is composed of the department chairs “or their designees from all school sites, as well as one position representing all alternative programs.” DSAC reviews curriculum proposals or changes and makes recommendations as appropriate.
The IPRC is made up of teachers, parents, and an administrator from each school site. Committee members review curriculum proposals, ask questions and provide feedback before recommending or not recommending that the curriculum and materials go forward in the approval process.
After presenting the proposed curriculum to these groups for feedback, the curriculum goes to the board for a first reading at public board meeting, followed by a second reading at a subsequent meeting, after which the board can vote to approve it or not.
The first reading
In the case of the ethnic studies pilot, the first reading was scheduled for March 5. However, since board member Ryan Williams was absent at that meeting and the special election for the Area 5 board seat was being conducted that day, Board President Christi Knight requested that the first reading be postponed until the next meeting, scheduled for April 16, a 6 week delay. Although the board was not scheduled to take any action on the proposed curriculum, President Knight felt that the issue was too important not to wait until the full board was present for the first reading.
When the agenda item came up on April 16 with the full board present, before any discussion of the pilot curriculum itself, Knight began by referencing a letter she found online. Knight said “In further research I found a letter that was written by the state board of education, the education policy advisor to the governor, Brooks Allen. He’s the executive director of the state board of education.” Knight then read the letter dated August 23, 2023.
The letter is addressed to “School Leaders” and Knight stressed the second to last paragraph that reads:
Accordingly, before any curriculum or instructional materials for ethnic studies courses are selected, we strongly encourage you to closely scrutinize them to ensure that they meet the above requirements.
Although the Ethnic Studies Committee had worked on the pilot for over 2 years, Knight felt compelled by the wording in the letter to create a subcommittee of the board to “closely scrutinize” the materials.
Speaking at the board meeting she said that “this has set somewhat of a precedent for me, because I’ve never seen a letter written by the governor around curriculum cautioning me that we “closely scrutinize” to ensure we have met the above requirements.”
Superintendent Jon Petersen explained that “Board bylaws do allow for the creation of committees which are subsets of the entire board, they serve in an advisory capacity, usually. [. . .] It would be for the sole purpose of this agenda item tonight and for no other purpose and would disband itself immediately upon making any kind of advice or recommendation to the board as a whole.”
However, the board was unable to vote on forming a committee at the April 16 meeting as it was not included on the agenda. Knight requested that forming an advisory committee be added to the May 7 Board Workshop agenda, another 3 weeks away.
The California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum
The letter from Brooks Allen reminded school leaders that the ethnic studies legislation specifies that curriculum and instructional materials for ethnic studies must:
Be appropriate for use with pupils of all races, religions, nationalities, genders, sexual orientations, and diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, pupils with disabilities, and English learners.
Not reflect or promote, directly or indirectly, any bias, bigotry, or discrimination against any person or group of persons on the basis of any category protected by Education Code Section 220.
Not teach or promote religious doctrine.
The letter also cautioned that:
“Vendors have begun promoting curriculum for LEAs to use for ethnic studies courses. We have been advised, however, that some vendors are offering materials that may not meet the requirements of AB 101, particularly the second requirement above, an important guardrail highlighted when the bill was signed.”
That paragraph of the letter had a footnote that referenced the letter Newsom wrote when signing AB 101 in 2021, which says in part:
I appreciate that the legislation provides a number of guardrails to ensure that courses will be free from bias or bigotry and appropriate for all students. The bill also expresses the Legislature's intent that courses should not include portions of the initial draft curriculum that had been rejected by the Instructional Quality Commission due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination.
- Governor Newsom, October 8, 2021
Governor Newsom was referring to a draft ethnic studies curriculum from 2016 that sparked controversy and led to changes in the new model curriculum. So the caution in the letter seems intended to make sure that schools are not using materials from vendors that include portions of the original draft curriculum that were ultimately rejected as discriminatory.
Board members’ concerns
During the April 16 meeting, the board discussed the ethnic studies pilot and legislation at length. Board President Knight did not cite any specific concerns based on what was in the ethnic studies pilot, but stressed the importance of closely scrutinizing the curriculum based on the caution she read in the letter mentioned above. However, during the discussion on the purpose of a pilot she said:
The other thing I’d like to clarify is that I don’t feel comfortable putting out a pilot and working through the bugs with children. If that makes sense to you. Like, don’t do it in the classroom where you are working out the bugs in the classroom.
- Christi Knight, April 16, 2024
Piloting new curriculum in the classroom to get feedback from students and teachers is an established practice in the district prior to rolling out new courses more broadly. At the May 7 board workshop, Dr. Casas said he could not recall when the district had last approved a new course without first doing a pilot.
From the start, Board Member Bill Durney expressed his trust in the district’s process. His concern was making sure the course was piloted before it has to be offered in the 2025-26 school year.
If we start going to a special committee, we won't get this pilot out next year. And we need to have the pilot out so we can clean it up, get it going. Because we have to offer this.
- Bill Durney, April 16, 2024
Although initially opposed to the formation of an advisory committee, Durney later stated he supported the idea so long as the committee ran in parallel with the pilot process and did not delay approval of the pilot.
Board Member Bob Weller was concerned that requiring students to take ethnic studies would distract them from other classes. “I totally understand that we’re going to need to come up with this. And yet, I feel like this is one more thing on the plate of students that is going to distract them from really understanding English and math and you know, history and things like that.” At this point, Durney interjected to point out that ethnic studies is history.
Although Weller did not specify what he’d read, he shared “I’ve reviewed some of the source documents and I was pretty surprised.” Weller stated he would not support approval of the pilot in the near term.
So because there is some conflicting support for how ethnic studies is supposed to be taught, I can’t support it in its current format. [. . .] Because I find that on this board, we’re always rushing, rushing, rushing and it’s like well we can take a couple months to really sort through this a little bit better.
- Bob Weller, April 16, 2024
Board Member Ryan Williams attended the meeting remotely. He said of the course outline:
I saw a lot of things that make sense to me. Genealogy, history, sociology. And you know right now, I’m literally sitting in Native American land, which comes from a lot of history. You know, our history is filled with great things, and you know, things that we all feel bad about. I do think it’s important for people to, and kids to understand those things. And I do feel it’s important for us to follow the law by making sure this class happens.
- Ryan Williams, April 16, 2024
Williams went on to say his primary concern was the open-endedness of the materials. “The course material is a very open-ended statement allowing a teacher to kind of take it wherever they would like it to be. And that’s my primary concern.” He also addressed a concern over how ethnic studies might make some students feel. “Although it’s important to understand the history. We need to make sure that we’re teaching this in such a way that kids don't feel, or aren’t held accountable for their ancestors in a sense.”
Newest Board Member David Vincent expressed support for ethnic studies in general but was concerned about whether the pilot was fully inclusive and how it would affect the mental health of students.
I just want to make sure we aren’t excluding any ethnicities. I want to make sure that we aren’t marginalizing people. So I’m not going to rubber stamp something without first understanding what’s offered in the pilot program. The worst thing you can do is marginalize one group as it can affect their mental health. There’s a lot of really serious adverse effects.
- David Vincent, April 16, 2024
Later in the discussion he added some examples of his concerns “So Asians, you kind of group Asians altogether, but there’s Filipinos, there’s Vietnamese. They all have diverse cultures, so how are you going to tell their history? So I need to understand that. Because I don’t want to exclude certain groups. Because when you say Arabs, and you say Jewish, there’s different sects of Jewish and that. So we’ve got to make sure we cover and don’t exclude certain groups because they may feel marginalized. And they may end up suffering from isolation, disillusion and those things I’m really concerned about.”
Advisory committee
At the May 7 Board Workshop, the board voted to create an advisory committee focused on the ethnic studies pilot. The vote was 3-2 with Bill Durney and Ryan Williams opposed.
Prior to the vote, the board discussed the purpose and necessity of an advisory committee. Board Member Durney reiterated his position that the committee was unnecessary. He pointed out that numerous teachers from multiple school sites have been working on the pilot and that a lot of input had gone into the 2 year process. Durney claimed that with a committee, “we're going to be second guessing these people who we have trusted for years and years.”
Durney said that if the board formed the committee, it should run in parallel with the pilot, not delay the pilot because “if we delay we don't get a chance to have a pilot program. We go live with it and that would be more hurtful.”
Board Member Williams asked a lot of questions to clarify the timelines, to understand why not approving the pilot prior to summer break would put the pilot at risk when the pilot is slated for spring semester in 2025.
Dr. Casas explained that the real issue is if the board requests changes to the pilot based on feedback from the advisory committee. Any change, even changing a link to an online resource currently in the draft curriculum, would require the district to reconvene SSC, DSAC and the IPRC per the district’s instructional materials adoption process. And if these changes weren’t requested prior to the end of the school year, it is very unlikely that these groups could reconvene before school resumes in August.
Although the pilot is slated for the spring semester of the next school year, Dr. Casas had explained at the April 16 meeting that the teachers selected to pilot the course in the spring “dedicate a period of their work schedule the entire fall semester to take an even deeper dive at the open educational resources that have been suggested and provided to the board and hopefully narrow that down to something they can start beta testing with our students.” If the pilot isn’t approved by the start of the fall semester of the 2024-25 school year, teachers piloting the new material may not have sufficient time to prepare.
Additionally, students cannot be recruited for the pilot until it has been approved by the board and if that doesn’t happen until sometime during the fall semester, it becomes difficult to find students who have an opening in their spring semester to take the pilot course.
In light of the challenges presented by delaying the pilot’s approval, both Durney and Williams indicated that they think the advisory committee should run in parallel with the pilot process and that the board should plan to approve the pilot at the May 14 meeting. However the other board members did not want to approve the pilot until the advisory committee had a chance to do their deep dive into the instructional materials, which wouldn’t happen in time to approve the pilot before summer break.
In the end, board members voted for or against the formation of the committee in line with their views on approving the pilot at the following meeting. The motion that passed 3-2 called for the formation of an advisory committee with Christ Knight and David Vincent as members.
Pilot versus final course
The second reading of the ethnic studies pilot was on the agenda of the May 14 board meeting. This is when the board typically votes to approve a pilot or course. This pilot is for a stand-alone ethnic studies course.
During discussion, David Vincent said he had done some research and learned that the district had various options for meeting the new ethnic studies requirement, one of which is to offer it as a stand-alone course. Vincent, who is fairly new to the board, wondered why the stand-alone option had been chosen.
According to Dr. Casas, the ethnic studies committee spent the first two days discussing the best way to pilot the program. To meet the ethnic studies requirements, Casas said “one option is you can spread out the recommended ethnic studies topics in English 9-12 or in social science curriculum in grades 10-12, or attach standards to existing courses such as US history or world history, or you can do a standalone course”, later adding “AP African American studies is another option for example, that meets the standards.”
However, Dr. Casas explained that when piloting new materials, they want a small sample size or focus group looking at the new materials. So while the pilot would run as a stand-alone course of the ethnic studies materials, he said that “doesn’t preclude the board or the Ethnic Studies Committee from adopting the curriculum in an existing course, or in a 4 year pathway or in a 3 year pathway.”
Whether ethnic studies is ultimately offered as a stand-alone course or not, the pilot is a key step in the curriculum adoption process because it provides feedback used to further refine the curriculum.
Based on feedback from teachers who will teach the pilot course, the curriculum would be proposed by the SSC, developed/refined by the DSAC, and vetted by the IPRC before going to the board for approval. The board may approve the recommended curriculum after going through this process and direct the superintendent to implement it. Or the board may reject the proposed curriculum and direct the superintendent to send the proposed curriculum back through the process for revisions requested by the board. This process includes the participation of our teachers, curriculum specialists, and community input, but eventually it is the elected officials on the board who approve the district’s curriculum.
- Email from EUHSD’s Community Relations Officer, April 25, 2024
Advisory committee update this week
At the last board meeting, it was clear that the advisory committee formed to take a deep dive into the ethnic studies curriculum presented by the district’s Ethnic Studies Committee had expanded its scope.
President Knight had not been aware that there were multiple options for meeting the ethnic studies requirement and suggested the district should have presented the options 2 years ago to get direction from the board before the Ethnic Studies Committee began their work. As part of the advisory committee, Knight wants to sit down with staff and discuss the pros and cons of the different options. Board Member Vincent also expressed interest in taking a deeper dive into the 4 options for fulfilling the ethnic studies requirements.
If the board decides after hearing from the advisory committee that they not only want changes to the curriculum, but also want to change the format of the pilot, it is unclear when or if the district will be able to pilot the course before it is required to be offered in the 2025-26 school year.