WRITTEN BY Valerie Watson

GRAPHIC BY Valerie Watson

The time to begin selecting classes for the next school year approaches at Las Lomas, and with it, a new course has been added to the school’s list of available classes to take. AP (Advanced Placement) African American Studies, which was piloted at 60 high schools across the US, is being launched in fall of 2024, meaning that all high schools in the United States will now be able to adopt the course. The course aims to examine the diversity of African American experiences through its four units: “Origins of the African Diaspora,” “Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance,” “The Practice of Freedom,” and “Movements and Debates.”

  The Acalanes Union High School District is one of the many school districts who chose to adopt the course as part of next year’s available curriculum, meaning that at least one teacher at every school in the district volunteered to teach the class. At Las Lomas, AP African American Studies will be available for 10th, 11th and 12th grade students. Las Lomas senior and ASB Vice President, Amaya Murray, was one of the students who spoke to the District board in favor of adopting the class. 

In a part of her speech to the board, Murray said, “In order to thrive in high school, students of color need teachers who reflect their own experiences and teach their histories. Classrooms solely dominated by white teachers and Western focused curriculum reproduce the social conditions that globally oppress non-White/non-Western people. The content of the curriculum determines both what a school is and who its alumni students become. Our district must provide all of its students with the tools to become citizens able to positively shape today’s globalized, integrated world … While some may perceive this topic to only be about or benefit Black students, I can’t stress enough how much all students will benefit from and appreciate this new course offering … adding courses like this broadens our educational experience, cultural competency, and social development.” Murray elaborated later that there are not many classes that represent the history of minorities at Las Lomas; “We have Ethnic Studies and one unit in Health class… and in our [US] history classes the only time they touch on African American history is when they’re talking about slavery,” said Murray.

Las Lomas school Librarian and former Acalanes High School teacher Natalie Moore first began thinking about creating an African American Studies course in fall of 2020 after a former student of hers, Amani Williams, reached out to Moore and Brian Smith, another Acalanes teacher. “Amani asked us if we would help her create this course; she had written an amazing opinion piece for Blueprint, talking about what it was like to be black at Acalanes.That is a piece that deserves to be reprinted in every student paper in the world. It was basically a call to action,” said Moore. 

According to Moore, she and Smith wrote the class together after Amani Williams reached out to them about creating an African American studies class. The class proposal was sent to the Director of Curriculum; however, she felt that it wasn’t the right time to offer the class. “The history classes then were being restructured to include more about African American studies so at the time the class was denied… It was just procedural, like, not yet” said Moore.

Now almost four years later, African American Studies is finally being offered to all schools in the Acalanes Union High School district as an AP class, and is available to be adopted by all high schools in the United States for the 2024-2025 school year; however, Florida’s ban on AP African American Studies prohibits Florida schools from teaching the class.

Moore also noted that it will be interesting to see the course offered at Las Lomas with the controversy in Florida, and hopes that Las Lomas students will elect to take the course next year, “the AP designation, as brutal as it sounds, will probably attract more students to the course, which is what we want. We want students to learn African American history. This is essential. So if the AP designation does attract people towards that, I think that if that’s the way that we get this information and this incredibly important curriculum to students, then that’s great. Let’s do it,” said Moore. 

  Florida’s Department of Education had blocked the proposed AP course, calling it a violation of Florida law and a form of political indoctrination. Florida Education Commissioner, Manny Diaz Jr, tweeted his list of concerns regarding the AP African American studies curriculum, which included topics such as Intersectionality and Activism, Black Queer Studies, Black Feminist Literary Thought, The Reparations Movement and Black Study & Black Struggle in the 21st Century.

This is consistent with Florida’s other actions such as Governor DeSantis signing the “Stop W.O.K.E Act,” which regulates how topics of race and gender are addressed in businesses and schools. The Parental Rights in Education Bill, commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” by critics, is another piece of legislation aimed at controlling what topics are covered in schools, which prohibits discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation through the 3rd grade. 

Despite this controversy in Florida, schools across the nation have sprung at the chance to adopt AP African American Studies to their available course selection, Las Lomas High School being one of them. Another change has also taken place with the graduation requirements at Las Lomas; a semester of Ethnic Studies will now be mandatory for all sophomores. In addition to AP African American Studies being added; Statistics & Data Science, AP Psychology and Spanish for Heritage Speakers are all new classes that will be available for Las Lomas students to sign up to take in the 2024-2025 school year.