DeKalb High School could add AP African American Studies course

DeKALB – DeKalb School District 428 leadership is considering whether to introduce a new AP African American Studies course at DeKalb High School.

The decision, if approved, aims to provide a year-long interdisciplinary course for juniors and seniors examining the diversity of the African American experience with authentic and varied sources.

The course is 20 years of work in the making, officials said.

Betsy Zimmerman, the district’s secondary humanities manager, said the district is pleased to know that it may be possible to move forward with the course.

“We are fortunate that CollegeBoard has picked up African American Studies, an AP course, starting this past school year,” Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman gave kudos to the district’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion, Amonaquenette Parker, for working to get the new course proposal together.

Some districts across the country have not been responsive to the AP course, however. School boards in multiple districts across the country moved to ban courses on AP African American Studies from their curriculum in 2023, The Associated Press reported. Those included in Florida, Arkansas and South Carolina. Since then, some individual school districts elsewhere have elected to teach it anyway, while others have canceled their plans, according to The AP.

Zimmerman said the course fits in with the DeKalb district’s core values. In particular, it aligns with promoting equity and access to higher levels of rigorous education, she said.

“In the first year of the program last year, CollegeBoard reported that 29% of the students enrolled in AP African American Studies were taking the class as their first and only AP class that year,” Zimmerman said. “Fifty-two % of those students were low-income students, which is double the rate of your average AP class. Additionally, at the end of the year, there were a larger number of students that reported that they ... planned on continuing college preparatory classwork or looking at college as a future path for them.”

Key topics in the proposed new course range from early African kingdoms to the ongoing challenges and achievements of the contemporary moment, according to school board documents.

DeKalb High School teacher Michael Petrov, who plans to teach the class, said he sees value in adding the proposed course.

“I teach world geography right now,” Petrov said. “We’re talking about early African kingdoms. That’s where this class picks up and it goes all the way to current events.”

Board Vice President Christopher Boyes questioned how the course will work considering how topics in race can be divisive for people to talk about in today’s world.

“How do we make sure we facilitate the course in a way where students on both sides of however they feel on these issues can truly hash that out in the classroom without feeling the district, their educator or whoever is pushing this specific way that they should look at the issue?” Boyes said.

Zimmerman said a specific component of the AP course invites students to study more specific aspects of the topic that interest them personally.

“That project at the end where students get to choose anything they’ve learned about already or anything they would like to learn about that we haven’t covered and they get to run an independent study, that portion is actually very independent and they’re presenting a project on it,” Zimmerman said. “However, the conversations do happen in class and they’re based largely on that primary-sourced document analysis. Mike and I both feel strongly that the job of the educator in that role is to teach students how to analyze the document, how to make their own sense of it and then scaffold in how to have a civil discussion about that.”

The course, if approved, would require a $99 AP exam fee.

However, the costs for students to take the exam could be absorbed the district’s Title IV Fund should students need the fee to be reduced or waived, officials said.

Also at the meeting, the school board was briefed on potential plans for introducing high school courses on physical science and geology, intro to agriculture trades, animal agriculture and production and greenhouse management.

The school board is expected to put the new course proposals to a vote during its Nov. 12 meeting.