At last Tuesday’s board meeting, the Palo Alto Unified School District board approved two new courses — Asian American Literature and AP Physics 2 — to be offered at Gunn High School next school year.
According to a course outline published in the board meeting agenda, the semester-long Asian American Literature class will include three units: Identity and Belonging, Asian Diaspora and Intersectionality. The course meets 21 California Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy, and aligns with UC “B” requirements.
According to Gunn student board representative Chris Lee, the Asian American Literature course will allow students to build on their understanding outside of the new semester-long Ethnic Studies class.
“What’s really great about courses like this new proposed one is that Ethnic Studies shouldn’t be the only semester where students are getting to explore their identities and getting to see what it means to be an Asian in Palo Alto,” Lee said.
After the addition of AP Physics 2, Gunn will be offering students every College Board-regulated AP physics class.
Former board president and board member Jennifer DiBrienza said she hopes that teachers start focusing on proposing more advanced humanities courses, as both Palo Alto High School and Gunn High classes are predominantly STEM-focused.
“It is lovely to see that if there is demand for these physics classes at Gunn, they are now being offered,” DiBrienza said. “Yet it reminds me of other students who come and ask about our advanced humanities classes. We hope there are teachers that teach humanities that want to offer some other options for students.”
Board President Jesse Ladomirak echoed this sentiment and pointed out the disparities in PAUSD high school course offerings.
“We’re adding an AP option in science, and we’re adding a non AP honors option in English, while our high schools already offer significantly more AP and honors courses in STEM than in humanities,” Ladomirak said. “An unintended impact of that imbalance is that many students who enjoy and feel more competent in humanities classes can feel like they have no option but to forego those classes and instead take more math and science because that’s where the AP honors courses are.”
According to DiBrienza, new courses can only be approved and implemented if they are proposed by PAUSD educators, which is why certain classes will only be offered at some high schools and not others, she said.
“It is wonderful to see new classes come up and the range of them coming from the teachers that are here and want to teach them,” Dibrienza said. “I know we always get the questions like, ‘But what about the other site?’ Not every class is offered at every site, unless there’s a teacher at the other site that wants to teach it.”
The board members and student board representatives took turns at the meeting expressing gratitude to the PAUSD teachers spearheading the initiative, providing students with new classes and elective options.
“I am so appreciative of our teachers because these courses only exist because teachers take the initiative to create and offer them to our students,” board member Todd Collins said. “I think it’s just amazing that we have such great teachers who are able to offer such amazing options for our students.”
