Quick Take
The Pajaro Valley Unified School District’s board of trustees voted to schedule a special meeting in March to discuss the district’s ethnic studies curriculum. The meeting will examine its current curriculum and decide on next steps.
The Pajaro Valley Unified School District’s board of trustees voted Wednesday night to schedule a special meeting in March to discuss the district’s ethnic studies curriculum.
That curriculum has been the subject of intense debate since the PVUSD board decided in September 2023 not to renew its contract with a consulting firm that had helped design and implement the curriculum after the state mandated that schools offer ethnic studies by 2025.
The curriculum was designed with help from Community Responsive Education (CRE), which is run by Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, a professor in the Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University. It’s currently being taught in PVUSD high schools.
The curriculum gained broad support among teachers and students but came under fire from previous district board members over allegations of antisemitism.
The district voted Wednesday to hold a special meeting for March 28 at 5:30 p.m. at the district offices in Watsonville, where the board and Superintendent Heather Contreras will decide on how to move forward with the ethnic studies curriculum. That decision will follow a deep dive on the current curriculum by Assistant Superintendent Claudia Monjaras and question-and-answer sessions with ethnic studies experts. There will also be a chance for public input at the meeting.
“I invite everyone who sent letters and who talked [today] to please show up to that meeting and tell us the history that needs to be told,” said trustee Daniel Dodge Jr. “This is a meeting for everybody to talk and share their stories.”
The vote follows the continued controversy surrounding the board of trustees’ decision to not renew the district’s contract with CRE. The governing board will not be making a decision on whether to reinstate the district’s contract with CRE at the March 28 special meeting.
The district had contracted with CRE for its ethnic studies support since 2021, when California passed legislation mandating all public schools offer ethnic studies courses by 2025. By 2030, California will require its students to take an ethnic studies course in order to graduate high school.
CRE didn’t create the curriculum taught in ethnic studies courses, but did help the district to create its own framework that teachers use as a guide for their own curriculum. The three high schools in the district have three different kinds of ethnic studies courses: history, English and art.
In 2023, the board of trustees voted to not renew the contract over concerns from former trustees Georgia Acosta and Kim De Serpa about Tintiangco-Cubales’ involvement with a 2019 version of a model curriculum that ethnic studies experts had drafted on behalf of the state, which erupted in controversy over how to characterize the Israel-Palestine conflict.
More than a dozen students, teachers and community members spoke at Wednesday’s meeting advocating for the board of trustees to reinstate the district’s contract with CRE. Many expressed how the ethnic studies curriculum benefits students, saying these courses help students improve academically. Speakers also demanded that the trustees apologize to Tintiangco-Cubales over accusations of antisemitism made by Acosta and De Serpa.
Students who spoke at the meeting shared how some of their classmates, who rarely showed up to school, would only attend ethnic studies classes because they genuinely enjoyed the course content.
“I am the product of ethnic studies. The reason why I wanted to become a teacher is because of ethnic studies,” said newly elected trustee Jessica Carrasco. Her support for the ethnic studies program was a key part in her winning campaign to the trustee board.
“I also want you to know that the statement of having kids specifically wanting to go to school because of this class is true because as a teacher who taught it, there are literally kids who only came to my class,” she said.
The PVUSD special meeting on the ethnic studies curriculum will take place Friday, March 28, at the district’s Watsonville offices; members of the community are welcome to attend.
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.