Tam Union school district faces persistent ethnic studies pushback

Despite numerous revisions and complaints, the upcoming ethnic studies course at the Tamalpais Union High School District is still not sitting well with many parents and residents — including a trustee and a trustee-elect.

The course should be a celebration and exploration of different cultures in order to foster empathy, compassion and understanding, said trustee Kevin Saavedra. Instead, he said, it appears to be a vehicle to further divisiveness.

“I don’t think making white people feel guilty about being white is a good thing,” he told educators presenting the course at the district board meeting Tuesday. “I think you have missed the mark here.”

Saavedra, the only nonwhite member of the school board, cast the sole “no” vote in February against approving the course curriculum. He said Tuesday that none of the revisions since then has changed his mind.

“I’m uncomfortable that this course is not something I would want my kids to have to take,” said Saavedra, whose children have already graduated high school. “I think it’s a missed opportunity.”

Trustee-elect Jennifer Holden of San Anselmo, one of about a dozen people who spoke out about the course on Tuesday, agreed.

“Seventy percent of the content this course is identity-based and divisive, categorizing students by their skin color or other immutable attributes,” Holden said.

Another 16 people watching online asked comment, but a dozen of them were unable to speak because of time constraints. Superintendent Tara Taupier said they could email the district with their comments.

The course, called “Community and Consciousness,” is set to begin Jan. 8. It will fulfill a state-mandated high school graduation requirement for ethnic studies that kicks in next fall.

District educators said the course is based on the state’s model curriculum, which suggests a focus on experiences of African American, Asian American, Latino American and Indigenous people.

The district also plans to add sections on Jewish and Arab Americans, as well as sections about gay people and other groups. The lesson plans for those groups have not yet been finalized, district officials said. That will be done over the winter break, they said.

Earlier this year, Jewish parents said they were worried about antisemitic elements in the draft version of an English elective course in ethnic studies that Tam Union plans to offer. The district has postponed the class.

Laurie Dubin, a parent of three Redwood High School graduates, said she and other parents also want the district to delay implementing the “Community and Consciousness” course until January 2026 to revise what they consider a polarizing political tone. They sent their request to the district in a 19-page letter on Nov. 1

“Although we support ethnic studies, we object to the overall politicized framework and infusion of one-sided lesson plans and materials throughout this new curriculum,” Dubin said in an email Wednesday. “We hope its launch is paused until such time as it can be re-designed into a more balanced and positive course that is less politicized and one-sided.”

Dubin wants the “problematic content, readings and material” detailed in the 19-page letter to be removed. She also wants the completed lesson plans on the Jewish and Arab experiences to be provided to parents who request them.

Paula Berry, a district curriculum director, said she is confident teachers will be able to navigate a balance between celebrating different cultures and identifying, but not amplifying, polarizing issues such as white supremacy, white privilege, Black power, decolonization, victimhood, persecution and oppression.

“Our teachers are experts in the classroom,” Berry said. “They may have the intention of exploring whiteness, but not of exploring white guilt.”

Berry said the teachers have been trained to bring up those topics in a way that is non-threatening to “students of color that are uncomfortable in our classrooms.”

Erik Berkowitz, a veteran teacher who is co-president of the teachers union, agreed.

“We know what we’re doing,” he said. “We’ve had to be in a classroom facing students after 9/11. You need to be able to trust us to handle teaching in these difficult moments in our society.”

Kevin Douglas, a board member of the Marin City Community Services District, said that while he doesn’t think students should be made to feel guilty about their race, it is important for them to learn the full history of the ethnic and cultural groups.

“You need to tell them the whole truth,” said Douglas, a Tamalpais High School graduate. “If you tell these kids the truth, there will be no guilt. The hard truths have to be exposed.”

Terrie Green, a Marin City activist, agreed.

“California is struggling with its history of marginalization,” she said. “There is so much hate now. Why is that? Give us the opportunity for our kids to learn about this.”

Lenny Hochschild, a parent who lives in Mill Valley, said he supports students learning to be “culturally relevant,” but he objects to the “highly political” tone of the course.

“This is a study in power dynamics, not ethnic studies,” Hochschild said. “This is race and resistance studies.”

Paul Bonapart, a Tamalpais High School graduate who has children who also graduated from the school, said the original intent of ethnic studies, as explained by former state superintendent Bill Honig, was to be inclusive.

According to Bonapart, Honig said that “inclusive ethnic studies programs inspire all students to embrace their own and others’ cultures, develop their individual potential, appreciate our common humanity and continue the important work of advancing America’s quest for a more perfect union.”

Instead, Bonapart said, ethnic studies has been co-opted — or “liberated” — by groups that seek to turn people against civic institutions.

“Liberated ethnic studies proponents sideline racial progress and focus on immutable differences,” he said. “Some dismiss individual merit, tolerance, the rule of law and compromise through reasoned discussion — values that prevent anarchy and authoritarian rule — as simply ways to maintain privilege.”

He said the district’s ethnic studies course has become part of that movement.

“The curriculum available about the Community and Consciousness course has missed the mark,” Bonapart said in an email. “It is skewed toward the type of political indoctrination and liberated ethnic studies curriculum that California Superintendent of Schools Honig warned against.”