Students Against Hate and Discrimination (SAHD) has been fighting for the introduction of an ethnic studies class at City and West High for over a year. It was originally planned that the course, taught by Lisa Covington, would be offered as an elective during third trimester, but on Monday, February 26th, just three days before the third trimester began, the course was postponed due to low enrollment and a change to the ICCSD’s initial pay offer.

SAHD asked for a public apology, due to the nature of the course’s cancellation and their notification thereof: they were told via email after an article had already been published in the Press Citizen.

“It seemed very insensitive, very brash, and honestly disrespectful,” Mariam Keita ‘20 said. “It’s just disrespectful to see that our administration is not willing to meet us with the same level of commitment that we’ve given.”

The class was brought up again at a school board meeting on March 27th in order to discuss how the district would proceed. Ultimately, it concluded that it would be offered in 2019 or 2020 as a Post-Secondary Enrollment Option (PSEO) class before or after school at Kirkwood Community College.

“I thought we could move forward,” Kingsley Botchway said. “We’re trying to get it done…the best option for now is to focus on the PSEO.”

SAHD agreed that this could be a possibility for 2019, but opposed this suggestion as a long-term solution, instead opting to support the incorporation of the class into the high school, in an on-campus trimester elective, since, according to Mira Bohannan Kumar ’20, “a lot of minorities and people of color take buses, and it would be very hard for them to get [to school early].”

“I consistently go to fencing, I’m in band—three different bands—I’ve got concerts, I’ve got practices, I’ve got tournaments, I’ve got lots of other things outside of school,” Joseph Bennett ‘20 said. “Depending on the person, before or after school, people might have other things they’ve got priority over. If this course falls to a low priority, people might not attend because it’s after school and they might not have time.”

SAHD demanded that it be included in the process of choosing the Ethnic Studies elective’s teacher, including helping with interviews and reviewing qualifications, but received no conclusive response from the school board.

“We were standing up holding signs, and [board members] were pretty much looking over us, and saying ‘you meet with you,’” Bohannan Kumar said.

The prospective teachers interviewing for this course, according to Keita, would have to be a person of color with a background in sociology and psychology.

“It’s so awkward being taught your history by people you don’t relate to,” Lujayn Hamad ‘18, a West High student, said. “Students, specifically minorities, are not included in history. We’ve been taught one history, we are taught white history, since as long as I can remember. We need our history to be taught to us in our schools. When we graduate, we need to be aware of who we are and where we’re from.”