Albany County Schools hopeful for African American studies course
The possibility for AP African American Studies might have been dashed when a key district deadline was missed, but district board members and others are hopeful similar programming can be offered.
An Advanced Placement course focused on the history, struggles and achievements of African Americans in the United States will likely not be offered at Laramie High School next year, as some had hoped.
But now that the topic has been raised, high school social studies teacher Will Plumb said he hopes students will soon have the opportunity to delve into the topic.
“It is what it is, but if these other opportunities are going to open, I’m really stoked and I’m really stoked there are people who are behind that,” Plumb said.
While some had hoped to bring the AP course to Laramie — following an invitation to pilot the new curriculum — school district officials say the deadline to propose new courses has passed.
During a recent district board meeting, trustees and administrators alike expressed frustration — that Laramie High School might miss out on an exciting opportunity, and that the course’s late proposal and subsequent rejection had caused controversy.
“For one reason or another — different reasons depending on who you ask — we seem to have turned away that option,” Trustee Nate Martin said. “There’s now people in our community who are very upset about this and I don’t say that I disagree with them.”
Superintendent Jubal Yennie said he was following the process set out by the board half a decade before.
“The board has requested that I have that information to you in November, so you can approve those by January,” Yennie said. “I received an inkling of this information — an inkling of this information — a week before Thanksgiving. Today, I learn that this conversation’s been going on for months and the curriculum director does not know that it was going on.”
Having passed the deadline, Yennie said the district should not “pander to tantrums,” but added that ultimate decision-making authority rested with the board.
“The board has asked us to follow process,” Yennie said. “The board has asked us to put systems in place. If it is the board’s desire to waive their processes, you certainly have that liberty.”
School board trustees were split on the issue. Some advocated giving the AP course consideration despite the missed deadline, given the unique possibility of piloting a new AP course.
“If this is something that is of value — and on the face of it, it looks to be something that is of value — is there a way that we can have a conversation about it?” Trustee Emily Siegel Stanton said. “Because it seems to me that there could be a real loss in this if we get mired in the process and how things unfolded. And our students will be deprived of an opportunity to be a part of an exciting pilot program.”
While others agreed with the value of such a course, they warned of knock-on effects from violating the established process.
“When you try to circumvent that process that we agreed to six years ago, I think we lose legitimacy,” Trustee Lawrence Perea said. “We have policies and procedures in place for a reason — because we want this process of approving curriculums to be an open and honest and transparent process. And as far as I can tell, that hasn’t happened.”
Trustee Kim Sorenson added that the deadlines were especially important for this particular course at this particular political moment.
“I can’t think of a better course to offer at this point in time,” Sorenson said. “However, the course needs to be put together correctly and follow the guidelines. We’re at a place now where if we didn’t put these texts or whatever materials are available for this course out for public observation, like our policies say, it would hit the fan.”
But everyone who spoke voiced their support for the idea behind the course.
“As a person of color and as a member of that community, it is heartbreaking to me that we were not given an opportunity to make an informed decision,” Trustee Jamin Johnson said. “Because I don’t think there’s any question in anyone’s mind here how I would have voted for that course.”
Johnson said students need to learn the history of “all the people who make up this community.”
“They need to learn the true history of the struggle that some people have endured to make our state and our community the amazing place it is, and they need to understand that that struggle continues, that people are harmed every single day and that racism is still very much alive,” Johnson said. “And they also need to understand the positive contributions that people of broad backgrounds have made to make our educational system what it is today.”
Plumb — who offered to teach the AP African American Studies course when it was being discussed informally — is hoping students will still get the chance. A course covering the same topics, history and themes could be developed in-house. A course on comics and culture Plumb co-teaches was developed this way.
“Often when we create classes, we will pilot them in the summer as enrichment and we have a lot more flexibility to do that due to the way a lot of the grant funding for summer enrichment and credit recovery programs work,” he said.
Plumb said working outside the AP system could carry with it other benefits. For example, the AP course would have had to be taught by, specifically, a social studies teacher. That’s why Plumb volunteered.
“I don’t feel like I am the most qualified person, as far as knowledge-base and life experience,” he said. “We have a lot of teachers who I know personally in the building who are more qualified within the content knowledge and lived experience. Not to say that I can’t teach the class or I shouldn’t teach the class. Just in my personal opinion, there are people who are greater experts than I am.”
Plumb added that even if the AP pilot course had been officially considered, there would be legitimate reasons to reject it that have nothing to do with politics. The pilot course would last three years, carry specific benchmarks for student enrollment and required data collection.
“Those are conversations that I would have liked to have had,” Plumb said.
Working outside the AP system also confers advantages. Perhaps the greatest of these, Plumb said, would be the ability to tailor the course to the local community. The course could include more local connections that might not be included in the AP curriculum — teaching the Black 14 incident, for example. It could also take a wider, more multicultural focus, bringing in Latino/Chicano studies or Native American history and culture.
“When we build it ourselves, there’s a lot of room,” he said.
Nothing has been decided and talk of a summer enrichment course is still just talk at this point. But everyone in a leadership role at the district who has spoken publicly about the AP African American Studies course has voiced support for teaching the subject at Laramie High School in one form or another.
At the school board meeting, Yennie agreed to look into the issue further.
“I will find some information, see what all those details are — the emails, the information, what’s happening there,” he said. “If there’s a way to make this work, I’ll bring it back to board and see if we can figure out a way to make it work.”