Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Ethnic Studies Course topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Duarte High presents new ethnic-studies semester for freshmen to meet state requirement
Summary
Duarte High School principal Louie Haro outlined a locally focused ethnic-studies semester-long course for ninth graders that aligns with the state model curriculum and emphasizes identity, local history and an action project on the community's 'Rocktown' heritage.
Principal Louie Haro presented the district board with Duarte High School’s new ethnic-studies course, a semester-long class being offered to ninth graders this year to align with a California requirement that schools offer ethnic studies.
The course, Haro said, focuses on four broad groups — African American, Latino, Native American/indigenous, and Asian American/Pacific Islander — and includes a required unit on identity, counter-narratives, inquiry-driven essential questions and an action project. Haro said the class will integrate history, literature and economics, align with the state model curriculum and Common Core standards, and emphasize local history (including study of Pio Pico, Luisa Moreno, Frank Emm[e] and other regional figures).
Haro described the course as semester-length and a good fit for freshmen because it pairs with a required semester health course; he said Duarte is offering two sections this year and also offering the class through the district’s early-college program, where it satisfies an IGETC requirement. Haro said the curriculum development team worked with the UCLA History–Geography Project and consultant Amparo Chavez Gonzalez and held parent meetings (about 12 parents attended a summer session). He said Miss Casey Ramirez, the course teacher, previously minored in ethnic studies and is teaching the class this year.
Board members asked how the requirement would affect students in higher grades; Haro and district staff said current 10th–12th graders are not required to take the course this year because the mandate applies as a graduation requirement for current eighth graders in future cohorts. Haro said the district is offering the class now to “work out the kinks” before the requirement becomes universal for graduates from the incoming eighth-grade cohort. He also described the planned action project as an exploration of the community’s local nickname and heritage, “Rocktown,” with outreach to local residents who remember the history.
The presentation was informational; the transcript does not record a formal board vote to adopt a districtwide policy at the meeting.
