Zoe Abraham was a senior at Francis Howell High School last year when she learned about civil rights activist Claudette Colvin.
In 1955, police in Montgomery, Alabama, arrested Colvin, then 15, after she refused to give up her bus seat to a white woman — months before Rosa Parks would.
Colvin’s history was just one of many facts Abraham learned from the Black history course. She also learned about Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, the Tulsa race massacre and how some Africans assisted Europeans during the slave trade.
Abraham, who is white, told the Francis Howell School Board during a March meeting that she probably wouldn’t have learned that important history if she hadn’t taken the class.
“None of this was covered in any of my other history classes,” Abraham said. “There is strength and power in this history, there is an importance and a lesson to it that we don’t get to cover in our required classes.”
Abraham’s worries that the class could be taken away proved to be true when the school board voted 5-2 in December to pull the class and the Black literature course.
“I was frustrated because there are so many good opportunities to learn there,” Abraham said in a recent interview. “And it's an elective class; it's not required.”
The board’s vote sparked a firestorm among students, parents and alumni who argued that it erases Black history.
School board members said they pulled the electives because their curriculum was based in part on a social justice standard developed by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Days after the vote, the district superintendent and board president said the classes would return but under a “politically neutral” curriculum.
But students who took the courses want the curriculum to stay the same. They say the lessons helped them learn about long-ignored histories and their own identities.
“It really opened me to being a critical thinker, being able to think for myself and formulate opinions for myself,” said Lauren Chance, a senior at Francis Howell North High School. “I feel that that class has really boosted my confidence into becoming the person I am today.”
Chance, who took Black history, said the course inspired her to become a leader in the Black Student Union.
“People don't know what's been taught in the course because their children are not taking the courses, and I think that's the issue,” Chance said
Students learned about what prejudice is and why it exists while ensuring everyone was in a safe and supportive environment, said Isabella Duncan, a junior at Francis Howell Central High School who also took Black history. Duncan was able to dive deep into Motown’s contributions to pop music, giving a presentation on the label.
“I think that walking into a classroom and feeling comfortable in this space, knowing you're safe is always a fantastic thing, and I think it's a great way to start off a course,” Duncan said.
After the protests over George Floyd's killing in 2020, the school board introduced an anti-racism resolution, pledging to create an equitable environment for all students and combating racism.
The Black Literature course utilizes the Missouri Learning Standards for Literacy, the National Educational Technology Standards and the Learning for Justice Social Justice Standards, established by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The social justice standards allowed educators to navigate how to discuss identities in a sensitive manner, said Jani Wilkens, a parent and former Francis Howell teacher who helped write the Black literature curriculum.
“That wasn't meant to be about race only,” Wilkens said. “It was meant to be about, we all come from different perspectives like, some kids are like the academics in school, some kids are the jocks, some kids feel really quiet and they thrive most when they leave school and go home to a workplace.”
Students who took Black literature chose the books they read, and the books could be about a person of color or written by one, Wilkens said. The teachers decided the entire class would read at least one book that was the same, a memoir by South African comedian and talk show host Trevor Noah. Wilkens said teachers considered other books too, even objecting to some they thought were too risqué for high school students.
But Wilkens said the criticism from parents and board members that upsets her the most is that teachers are creating a class to denigrate white students.
“The thing that really bothers me most is when people say, ‘oh, we created that curriculum so that white people or white kids would feel bad about who they are,’” Wilkens said. “I'm a white mother, I have no desire to make my own kids end up in a class where they're made to feel ashamed about their culture or their background or their race.”
A history of racial strife
For some parents who live in the St. Charles County area, the vote is the latest chapter in a history of racial division. About 10 years ago, many of the district’s white parents opposed the decision to bus in students from the predominantly Black Normandy School District following a Missouri Supreme Court Decision.
In 2020, the same year the Francis Howell School Board passed the anti-racism resolution, teachers, parents and community members started the group Black Voices Matter to combat racism across the district.
When the district introduced the courses following the George Floyd protests, Black parents thought the district was moving in the right direction.
“The community was excited,” said Harry Harris, a Black parent in the district and a former school board candidate. “I have to go back and look through the numbers, the first year we had something like 135 students taking these classes.”
But Harris said things started to change by the time of last year’s school board election when a conservative majority took over. The board sunsetted the anti-racism resolution last year and proposed but tabled a transgender student bathroom ban.
The board’s recent decision to reconsider the history and literature courses didn’t surprise some parents. But some are still confused about what parts of the curriculum board members objected to.
“They're presenting it like you have students who take this course and all of a sudden they get Black Panther jackets and they're marching out in the streets fist raised and calling for taking people out,” Harris said. “Nobody's doing that, it’s comical that they even think that.”
In a December statement, board members who objected to the courses said they're confident in the administration’s ability to create a “largely politically neutral” curriculum.
"We are confident in our academic team's ability to bring forth a curriculum that is rigorous and largely politically neutral - one that will meet the Board's approval on a timeline that prevents interruption of course offerings,” the statement read in part.
Harris said he has faith in the curriculum builders and the superintendent but worries the classes won’t come back.
“The board can keep coming back and saying, ‘no, we don't like that, you're gonna have to go back and change [that],” Harris said. “They can keep doing this until the class is ready to start, then if we get to that point, they're going to have to cancel the class.”
Students and parents take action
The decision to pull the courses and bring them back under a new curriculum could make restoring the previous one difficult. Because the terms for the two board members who voted to keep the classes, Jane Stiglich and Chad Lange, expire this spring, even if people in favor of the classes are voted in, it might not change the board’s direction, said Francis Howell parent Carrie Ziolkowski, whose son took Black History.
“My kids are sophomores,” Ziolkowski said. “The earliest this could turn around is their senior year, and that to me is sad, particularly if they go after even more things that are, you know, I think are positive parts of the school district.”
Ziolkowski is still urging people to vote in the upcoming election. Her daughter, Harper Schneider, and Chance helped create the Students for Francis Howell Instagram page and a change.org petition to try to put pressure on the school board to bring the classes back prior to them being reinstated. Schneider said while she was interested in taking the course, she’s worried about potential changes to the curriculum.
“How is race political, and why are you saying a politically neutral curriculum,” Schneider asked? “I don't understand how race is political, because it really shouldn't be.”
Many students have continued to show their support for the classes. On the first day back from winter break, students wore black to protest the board’s move. They’re also planning a walkout for later this month.
Parents like Zoe’s mother, Beth Abraham, say the board’s decision may have backfired.
“The irony is that by pushing this down, so far, they pushed kids toward activism, and that they're learning what that's all about now, because they're trying to silence this interesting topic,” Abraham said.
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