SF School District Won’t Cancel Ethnic Studies, But Pauses Its Homegrown Curriculum

After controversy over its ethnic studies program, San Francisco’s school district announced Monday that it would continue teaching the class but put a pause on its homegrown curriculum to audit course materials.

Last week, ethnic studies teachers, district employees and a school board member raised alarms after they said Superintendent Maria Su met with school leaders to discuss a possible plan to pause the San Francisco Unified School District’s ethnic studies program entirely. For months, the course had come under fire from some parents who found it biased and “activist-driven.”

The district said Monday that it plans to keep ninth graders enrolled in ethnic studies this fall, but it will pilot a new interim curriculum used by other California school districts that meets state board of education guidelines as it reviews its own program.

Over the next year, SFUSD will conduct an audit of the ethnic studies curriculum that teachers have developed and taught since the district was among the first in the U.S. to introduce such a course in 2010. District officials said they aim to develop a curriculum to bring to the city’s board of education for approval during that time.

“I remain deeply committed to the importance of Ethnic Studies in developing critical thinking, cultural understanding, and civic engagement among our students,” Su said in a statement. “As we prepare for a successful start to the school year, my goal is for SFUSD to offer Ethnic Studies with intention, quality, and shared purpose.”

The class came under fire this spring after a national education group published an “incident report” criticizing curriculum focused on “white supremacy culture,” gender ideology and support for undocumented immigrants.

A flurry of articles weeks later found lesson plans asking students to role-play as Israeli soldiers and Palestinian refugees, and noting the Chinese youth militants known as the Red Guards among social movements that have “pushed for change and justice.”

Ethnic studies teachers in the district told KQED they had never used those course materials or heard of their colleagues teaching them.

The course has “been in the district for a decade and has never been an issue,” said Sam Aguirre, who has taught the course since 2015.

After SFUSD launched its ethnic studies pilot program in 2010, it has had the course available as an elective for all high school students since the 2015–16 school year.

It became a graduation requirement for ninth graders last fall.

“We’re teaching the same units that have always been around, the same core values, the same mission statement for a decade,” Aguirre said.

A 2021 study from Stanford’s Graduate School of Education found that low-achieving students in the SFUSD class were more likely to attend and be engaged in school, graduate and go to college. New research from UC Irvine shows that taking the course in ninth grade boosted GPAs, especially among Black and Latino students.

Aguirre and other district teachers worried a pause to the class could turn into a repeal, as momentum surrounding the expansion of ethnic studies wanes more broadly.

California’s state budget, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom over the weekend, excludes funding to implement a state mandate for ethnic studies in public schools, which was set to go into effect this fall.

Other districts in the Bay Area have also faced legal pushback to plans to expand the course, many of which have stemmed from Israel’s war in Gaza and concerns over allegations of antisemitism in schools.

In addition to the audit, SFUSD plans to introduce a new administrative regulation on supplemental instructional materials in response to the backlash.

The rule will require that resources teachers plan to use in their classrooms be reviewed to ensure they are “aligned with district curriculum objectives,” directly related to the course they’re used in and age-appropriate.