Two meetings and two sets of amendments later, the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District voted 6-1 to offer “Ethnic Studies: Multicultural America” for a one-year pilot that’s subject to review.
During the meeting, several trustees continued to cite concerns about the course’s contents and recent community backlash. The April 13 ethnic studies course hearing garnered 53 emailsā52 in supportāand 16 public commenters who spoke in support at the April 13 meeting. Comments came from a mix of students, parents, alumni, community members, and educators.
The board failed to approve the course with the amendments it suggested at the March 23 meeting. Those amendments included: incorporating women’s issues into each unit; including a unit on Irish and Jewish immigration to the U.S.; increasing emphasis on the ability of different ethnic groups to overcome obstacles and demonstrate achievement and general progress; and including an overcoming adversity unit to showcase resilience and agency.
Trustees Jim Reed, Lance Gannon, Chris Bausch, and Dorian Baker said they weren’t “satisfied” enough with the changes to approve the course presented on April 13.
The second round of amendments that lead to the course’s approval included: making it a one-year pilot program subject to review; offering the course to 11th and 12th graders only; and additional course material from authors Thomas Sowell and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Baker said she’s continued to hear from members of the community who are worried that the course focuses on themes of social justice, social responsibility, and social change. Her greatest concern was that the course included information from critical race theory. Critical race theory, coined as “anti-American” by former President Donald Trump, posits that race is a socially constructed category used to oppress and exploit people of color.
Paso Robles High School social science teacher Geoffrey Land said he spent about 20 hours a week over six weeks creating the initially proposed course curriculum and subsequently working in the board’s previous amendments.
Land assured Baker the elective ethnic studies course, which will also count toward college credit for Cuesta College, does not include critical race theory. This process, Land told the board, reminded him of his marriage in that “teaching is a public trust that extends beyond the classroom.”
“This community conversation we’ve been having for the last month is perhaps like some awkward Thanksgiving dinner table conversations, still an important and necessary part of family and community and education,” he said.
Gannon reiterated concerns that he voiced at the board’s March 23 meeting that he’s worried about the safety of the white students in response to this course.
“I feel that right now there are probably students at the high school that are scared to even say anything against this course for the reprisals that they will get. I am concerned about their safety going forward, honestly,” Gannon said.
He felt the course curriculum is “too much” for ninth graders who have already endured so much in 2020āsuch as lack of social interaction.
“There’s the reflective chapters that we see, the introduction to identities for four weeks. It appears that it should be best left to a professional therapist, this explore themselves and how they fit into society and, you know, reflect on this. It just seems to me a little bit more than a ninth grader should be doing,” he said.
Board member Reed, who ultimately voted against approving the course, was upset that “somebody is deciding what ethnicities are more disadvantaged or have a better story” that will be covered in the course. Board member Bausch said that he was unprepared for the “onslaught of editorials and letters, emails from people attacking” the board’s March 23 vote to approve the course with amendments.
The four trustees reluctantly came to a consensus after Paso Robles Superintendent Curt Dubost expressed his disappointment that a majority of the board continued to take issue with the course curriculum.
“I can’t state strongly enough how important I think it is for you to be responsive to the input that you have received from a teacher who has done an incredible job. Give up spring break to work on this nonstop, has poured his heart and soul into that,” Dubost said. “It almost feels like some of you may be looking for reasons not to look at this, … and I hope that’s wrong. At some point you just have to say, ‘Let’s try it because we believe in Mr. Land, we believe in the class, and we want these kids to be rewarded for the passion they’ve showed for us.'” Ī
This article appears in Apr 15-25, 2021.
I suspect that everyone supports educating young people about the evils of racism. However, most of us are also sensitive to the abuse by academia in its use of racism to further attacks on many of our institutions, frequently accompanied by severe misrepresentations of reality.
We have witnessed a remarkable expansion in promotion of claims of racist bias in the public square. Much of this seems calculated to expand the power of the left, strengthening “cancel culture” and broadly decreasing freedom of speech. The solution of a “color blind society” is not acceptable to those who want to tear down our institutions. But a color blind society is the only form of a multi racial society which can succeed.
Rather than focusing on claims of “racism,” we would be better off leveling the playing field. A good place to start would be with universal school vouchers so that parents can choose their children’s schools, forcing schools to compete for students. The money, after all, comes from the citizens and should be used to respond to their choices.
Certainly being trapped in poor communities with high crime rates and lousy schools is a major source of the conflict among races in our country.
I AGREE with Clovis Dad!
The problem with so-called āEthnic & Gender Studiesā curriculum is that it is inevitably used by adherents of the whacky left to further their attempts to inoculate innocent school kids about the āevilsā of normal society.
The best thing we can do is use the schools to teach the core academic material, and leave the fluff out of the deal.
E Pluribus Unum: āOut of Many, Oneā.
We should be happy that students are eager to learn and thus we should provide all the good opportunities we can for them to do so.
Universities offer degrees in ethnic studies, so theres no good reason high school students should be prohibited from learning such things. We should trust Students with the truth