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Palo Alto parents express concern over ethnic studies course

Palo Alto High School, one of the schools involved in the coming ethnic studies pilot course.
Palo Alto High School, one of the schools involved in the coming ethnic studies pilot course

California school districts will have to offer an ethnic studies course starting with the 2025 to 26 school year.

Palo Alto Unified School District decided to begin its ethnic studies rollout with pilot courses. The decision has been met with backlash from parents concerned that the courses will be divisive and controversial.

Palo Alto Unified already has an ethnic studies course, but this decision is focused on updating that curriculum. This fall, a group of freshmen at Palo Alto and Gunn high schools will take a course with a classroom size of 20 students and two dedicated teachers.

The Palo Alto Parent Alliance has written multiple letters to the district superintendent expressing their concerns. The first, sent in March, questioned the school district’s ethnic studies consultant, the UC Berkeley History-Social Sciences Project. They insisted that the consultant promotes a “highly controversial, politically ideological, one-sided, and ethnically divisive approach to Ethnic Studies.”

The second letter asked for the school district to pause their rollout and stick with their existing ethnic studies curriculum. According to the Parent Alliance, this letter has collected more than 1,400 signatures. Their main complaints center around what they feel is a lack of input from the community, concerns over political topics, and a desire to avoid similar controversies in other California school districts.

Sheree is a writer and journalist based in the Bay Area. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from San Francisco State University. Her work can also be found on The Spectacle, TED.com, and KQED’s Rightnowish podcast.