Board reviews proposed senior dystopian novels for pilot and clarifies ethnic-studies curriculum implementation

At the March 10 meeting, a staff member presented three novels for consideration as part of a 12th-grade unit on dystopian societies and told the board copies would be available for review for two weeks. The titles presented were Parable of the Sower (described in the presentation as a novel centered on Earthseed and a protagonist navigating societal collapse), Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. The presenter noted the works engage themes of survival, systemic inequality and the role of art, and explained they would be used for in-depth thematic analysis in a senior English course.

The board did not take a curriculum-adoption vote at the meeting; the presenter said the books would be available for board review for two weeks.

Later in the meeting during other business the board discussed ethnic-studies curriculum. Board members clarified that the Oregon State Board of Education recently adopted revised social-science standards that incorporate ethnic-studies standards into required history courses. District staff said the district had begun teaching those standards earlier than state implementation and that embedding the standards across K-12 social studies is different from creating a stand-alone, required ethnic-studies elective.

Board members and staff explained that while a separate elective or AP offering (for example, AP African American Studies) could still be created as an additional course, the state-required ethnic-studies standards are being delivered through the existing required course sequence and are not an additional required course on top of current graduation requirements.

Provenance: The book presentation appears in the transcript during the "secondary pilot" agenda item; the ethnic-studies explanation and discussion appear later in the meeting under other business and public-comment follow-up.