Split board approves Ethnic Studies curriculum

BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer

At a long and tense meeting, the Palo Alto school board voted tonight (Jan. 23) to keep Ethnic Studies as a graduation requirement to the cheers of teachers who worked for two years on the class.

The board was split 3-2 against the proposal during most of the meeting, then flipped in the last hour. Board members Shounak Dharap, Shauna Segal and Josh Salcman voted for the class.

New board members Salcman, Rowena Chiu and Alison Kamhi said they support Ethnic Studies as a concept, and they were impressed by students who talked about their positive experience in a pilot course last semester.

But community members are still afraid and confused about what Ethnic Studies entails, and the district needs to improve its process, Salcman said.

Salcman was poised to vote to delay Ethnic Studies, but he voted in favor after board member Shounak Dharap said the district would talk in March about “progress indicators” to measure the success of the course.

Dharap also reassured Salcman that board members who are liaisons to schools would play a more active role.

Kamhi said she heard concerns about how minority groups are presented and about the course’s attitudes toward political violence.

“I believe we have to be very transparent about what we are teaching, provide opportunity for meaningful feedback and not push through classes that make people and communities, including communities of color, feel unsafe, targeted or disrespected,” Kamhi said.

Benjamin Bolanos, a social science teacher at Palo Alto High School, said board members were getting it wrong.

“This is the first time I’ve met you guys,” he said. “You’ve never come to our classrooms to talk about this stuff. Unbelievable.”

Dharap and Segal were also frustrated that a new board majority was talking about overturning their previous decision to mandate Ethnic Studies, starting with the next class of incoming freshmen.

“A policy is a promise,” Dharap said, referring to the previous board’s vote.

“Teachers — you did it right,” Segal said.

Dharap and Segal tried to change their colleagues’ minds and took a 15-minute break to think about the vote.

The confusion was heightened because Superintendent Don Austin included a document of “curriculum and sample lessons” from the Ethnic Studies course.

But teachers said the document was a draft from a year ago, and Austin said he didn’t believe the document should be released.

It was also unclear how students in the pilot were selected. 

Emotions ran high at the meeting.

“I have felt very unsafe in this meeting,” Chiu said at one point.

“We should slow down for just a second, even take just a little breath,” Austin said.

The board room was at capacity and an overflow crowd waited outside.

Teachers, students and administrators were overwhelmingly in favor of Ethnic Studies.

“This is the right thing to do. This reflects our stated values as a community — a community dedicated to inclusion, diversity, respect,” said Meb Steiner, president of the employee’s union.

Associate Superintendent of Educational Services Guillermo Lopez attempted to head off the opposition at the start of the meeting.

Palo Alto is not following the “liberated” model curriculum that was put forward in 2019 and then discarded by the state, Lopez said.

The “liberated” curriculum was criticized for its political focus on race and consciousness that seemed intent on alienating kids from institutions by presenting non-white people as victims and white people as oppressors, Lopez said. 

But Palo Alto is adapting its class from the “inclusive” model curriculum put forward by the state in 2021, Lopez said.

Students learn about California ethnic groups’ histories, cultures, contributions and struggles, Lopez said.

The class would focus on four ethnic groups — African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans and Latinos.

Two instructional leads and two social science teachers piloted the course last semester and received overwhelmingly positive feedback from students, Lopez said.

Three students from the pilot talked about how they liked the class because the projects felt connected to the real world and their own experiences.

“These kids are making me cry,” parent Linda Henigan said.

Austin also spoke in favor of Ethnic Studies.

“It represents our belief in the power of knowledge to connect and uplift,” Austin said.

But some parents, including a group waiting with frustration outside the district office, weren’t convinced that Ethnic Studies should be required.

“I don’t want our kids to be testers, to see if they’re divided,” parent Siming Li said.

Signs in the crowd reflected a divide — one group had signs that said “Ethnic Studies Now” and the other had signs that said “Trust and Transparency.”

Sarith Honigstein, part of a group called Palo Alto Parents’ Alliance, said 70% of the course is about power, oppression, and resistance, with a focus on violent resistance.

The class is like a far-left, college-level “race and resistance studies” course, Honigstein said after reviewing an outline published this week.

“It is now clear why the district steadfastly refused to provide anyone a meaningful opportunity for input and review,” she said. “The curriculum — designed to be taught to 14-year-old freshmen kids — contains extreme elements.”