With third trimester beginning on March 1st, news broke just three days before that the newly created social justice course, which was set to pilot at both City and West high school, had been “postponed.”

“Good Morning Lisa,

Based on the change to our initial offer and low student enrollment, we will no longer be offering the course for this trimester. Thank you and please let me know if you have any questions.”

That is the entirety of the email that Lisa Covington, who was slated to teach the course, received at 10:48 on Monday, February 26th. Some students were notified via a short news brief put out by the Press-Citizen while still others remain unaware of the change.

“I mean it’s a pilot class, it isn’t meant to be overwhelmingly full at all,” said Joseph Bennett ‘20, of City High, who was signed up to take the course.

Covington has expressed disappointment in the sequence of events.

“I think that a lot of this could have been addressed before this week,” Covington said. “I don’t think it’s fair to the students. The fact that it was released in the newspaper before students were aware of it as a whole. The fact that the course had 17 students [at City and West] as of the 16th of this month…is not fair.”

Covington believes that the decision was administrative, coming from the ICCSD administration rather than the school board.

“I’m not sure exactly what’s happening,” Covington said. “Having it at one school could have been a compromise.”

Covington had planned to use the recent release of the pop-culture Marvel movie giant Black Panther to center the first discussions in her class.

“What does it mean to be African and African-American? Are African-Americans misunderstood by Africans?” said Covington.

Members of Students Against Hate and Discrimination, who have been advocating for the introduction of an ethnic studies course for over a year, plan to attend the next school board meeting tomorrow, February 27th, to address the change.