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Heated debate over ethnic studies and honors classes dominated the Sequoia Union High School District’s April 23 board meeting, as teachers and parents packed the room to weigh in on curriculum changes and restoring advanced course offerings for the upcoming year.
The board voted 3-2 to modify the ethnic studies curriculum and unanimously voted to affirm the district’s 2025-26 course offerings. Trustees Sathvik Nori and Richard Ginn opposed the changes to the ethnic studies curriculum.
In the fall, the board plans to review graduation requirements, including whether to continue the ethnic studies course as a graduation requirement, and also promised the community that no changes would be made to course offerings without board approval.
Teachers largely voiced their support for the ethnic studies curriculum, while parents expressed concerns about the ethnic studies course causing discrimination and division in the student population.
In 2020, the Board of Trustees voted to make ethnic studies a graduation requirement beginning with the Class of 2025, making SUHSD one of the first districts in the area to offer the course. The curriculum was created by teachers guided by the state’s model curriculum.
The 2020 decision came ahead of state Assembly Bill 101, which the state passed in 2021, making ethnic studies a graduation requirement beginning with the class of 2030, said Assistant Superintendent Bonnie Hanson.
Controversy erupted in January 2024 when two Menlo-Atherton ethnic studies teachers presented their classes with a lesson on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Presentation slides included images of a puppet on strings and a map of Palestine’s territory shrinking over the decades. Parents and community members called the lesson “Hamas propaganda” and antisemetic.
Hanson said the initial curriculum model was not perfect, and the district is working to improve the ethnic studies course structure. She said the district aims to align its curriculum with the state Board of Education’s approved course model.
“The purpose (of ethnic studies) is to provide opportunities for student exposure to the histories, culture and world view of people of color and marginalized populations, particularly in the United States of America, to build an understanding and create space for inquiry,” said Executive Director of People, Culture and Community Oyame KenZoe Brian J. Selassie.
Changes to ethnic studies
The curriculum revisions were led by Hanson, Selassie, and ethnic studies teachers from across SUHSD, with support from an external consultant specializing in curriculum development. District leaders reviewed and vetted the final curriculum, Hanson said.
The revised curriculum emphasizes “civic mindedness and is community centered,” said Victoria Dye., director of the professional development department. The district aims to build student skills “to respond to social, political, environmental dynamics of their interest in choosing and the model valuing diversity and practicing empathy,” Dye added.
The ethnic studies criteria will ensure that students learn ethnic studies concepts through case studies rooted in African American, Latino/Chicano, Asian American, Pacific Islander and Indigenous studies.
All lessons will be evaluated based on three criteria: content and skills, pedagogy and delivery and sense of belonging. These standards are intended to encourage student inquiry and allow them to apply their learning to topics of their interest.
Dye said the curriculum will center the history of marginalized people while also incorporating American history to help students see history’s relevance when connecting the past and current issues.
A debate on ethnic studies
During public comment, several parents called on the district to eliminate ethnic studies or further revise its curriculum, describing the current course structure as “discriminatory, colonialist and divisive.”
“The ethnic studies roll out at Sequoia Union High School District was premature, non-transparent, and has resulted in classrooms using discriminatory material and has students locating themselves on wheels of power and guessing the races of other people,” said an anonymous parent on Zoom, who called for the return of a world history course.
Some parents said the district’s revisions did not go far enough. Menlo-Atherton parent Karen Orzechowski asked the district to develop “a constructive ethnic studies curriculum, one that builds understanding, inspires mutual respect, confronts racism, celebrates ethnic accomplishments and does not glorify violent resistance.”
After the presentation, Ginn said that he did not support the state model curriculum, which the revised lesson plan would be guided by. Although he supports ethnic studies, the board’s approval of the course in 2020 endorsed a coursework that did not follow the state’s model curriculum, he said.
“I believe it includes controversial content and based on the many messages we received and the public comments that we heard, several members of our community feel the same way,” said Ginn.
Trustee Maria Elena Cruz, an ethnic studies professor at San Jose State University, said she “wholeheartedly supports ethnic studies.” She said the course has exposed her son to the history of marginalized communities and allowed him to connect to their family’s Latino heritage.
“There’s an anti Latino sentiment right now, and I think in ethnic studies, is a good place for students to feel safe to talk about sort of the issues that are happening right now with our community specifically being targeted right from this administration,” Cruz said.
Melissa Diaz, an ethnic studies teacher at Sequoia High School said she has been working hard to survey students to make “the curriculum more inclusive, more local, more relevant and more joyful.” Her goal is to help students build critical thinking skills.
Nori said he believes the revisions make the curriculum slightly better, but was“not fully convinced that the revised curriculum solves some of the problems that a lot of our community members have addressed.
“I also do not believe that this curriculum, or in the way it was explained, will sustain court challenges or in the court of public opinion,” Nori added.
Parents call to bring back honors courses
As the school board was set to affirm next year’s course offerings, parents took the opportunity to ask for the restoration of honors classes.
The removal of honors classes, also known as detracking, was approved by the board in 2023 as a way to provide heterogeneous classes rather than separating students in a tiered system. The district’s goal was to improve the grades of less-advantaged students by allowing all students to work together and gain cooperation and participation skills.
East Palo Alto council member Mark Dinan spoke to the board, expressing that his freshman son at M-A has been finding his school work to be less challenging compared to his time in middle school. He said public education is critical for East Palo Alto families, many of whom don’t have the option to supplement learning with private education and enrichment activities.
“For me, detracting is a big message to the many affluent parents in this district, to send your kids to private school if you want them to have a rigorous education,” said Dinan. “I don’t think we need to do that. I encourage the district to restore honors, provide rigorous honors classes for advanced students and classes at all levels.”
Parents who spoke to the board believe that detracking harms the potential for successful students to engage and be challenged in their classrooms.
“Our most successful students of marginalized communities are stuck in public schools and their access is cut off, and if they’re bored and disengaged, you may really lose an opportunity to change a student’s life,” said an anonymous parent on Zoom.
Despite the concerns, data shows that detracking is improving student scores. A Stanford University study titled “Accelerating Opportunity: The Effects of Instructionally Supported Detracking,” by Thomas S. Dee and Elizabeth Huffaker showed that the initiative strongly benefited students in Algebra classes.
“This initiative also increased attendance, district retention, and overall math credits. These results suggest the impact of higher expectations coupled with aligned teacher supports for the lowest-performing students,” writes the study.
The board’s vote will not bring back honors classes, despite parental disagreement.
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Thank you for this coverage, Jennifer. I want to point out an important disconnect, however, in your inclusion of the Dee study. That study examined the results of eliminating remedial math at SUHSD and has nothing to do with elimination of honors (which affected science and English courses, but not math).
This is a common conflation of initiatives that has resulted in a false narrative that “detracking” has improved A-G and graduation rates. The district eliminated remedial science and math around the same time as eliminating Honors classes. Eliminating remedial classes would change A-G completion, as those classes were not classified for A-G. However, both college prep and honors courses were already A-G classified.
Specificity is important if one wants to use evidence-based decision making, which one would hope our district leaders would.