A campaign that was coordinated by the LAUSD Human Relations Commission.

LA Unified has a Human Relations Commission, but it may be one of the district’s best-kept secrets.

Their meetings aren’t listed on any of the school district’s calendars; more than 40 percent of the meetings last year didn’t have a quorum; and the department overseeing it once had 31 employees but is now down to two.

“When you hear the anti-immigration rhetoric going on during this presidential campaign, and hear the legitimate fears that children and their families are expressing in the district, you know that the work of the commission is more important now than ever,” said Allan Kakassy, a retired high school teacher appointed to the commission by school board member George McKenna. “But there is hardly any outreach, and nobody really knows that it is going on.”

The Commission on Human Relations, Diversity & Equity, also known as the LAUSD Human Relations Commission, is made up of an appointee from each school board member as well as representatives from the major unions, the city and county human relations commissions, the Los Angeles County Office of Education, the Anti-Defamation League and other community representatives.

“Students and teachers are very concerned about bullying and there’s an element of that in the presidential campaign that seems to encourage it,” Kakassy said. “And there are so many ways to do it with social media. These are things we discuss at our meetings.”

Last year, the group discussed issues such as the renewed push to make ethnic studies an A-G requirement, all-gender restrooms, library books with more inclusive religious diversity and school safety issues.

“At every meeting we are discussing issues that are in the headlines right now, and we are trying to figure out how to help the district support the students with the greatest needs,” Kakassy said.

The ethnic studies issue is a passion project for LA Unified teacher and activist Jose Lara, who often attends the commission meetings and is working on implementing the classes in the district and throughout the state. Lara was disappointed that LA Unified disbanded the Ethnic Studies Committee last year, until he and the commission pushed for the meetings to resume this year in an effort to make the class an elective in the A-G curriculum. Meanwhile, Lara is working on getting ethnic studies added to the statewide curriculum as an elective in a bill now before Gov. Jerry Brown. The governor vetoed a similar bill last year that would have made it a requirement.

When it was created in 2005, the Office of Human Relations, Diversity & Equity that oversees the commission had a director, five specialists, one classified employee, 16 youth relations employees and eight student-to-student staff specialists. By 2008 all the positions had been eliminated except for two human relations specialists.

Judy Chiasson, director Human Relations, Diversity & Equity, said the commission will be introducing three new members at the next meeting Thursday. The group will also hear a presentation about social-emotional learning and how it is being used in the district.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Sept. 8 in the Blue Room next to the LA Unified School Board auditorium at 333 South Beaudry Ave. The meeting is open to the public.

Derrick Chau said the Ethnic Studies Committee will start meeting again.

The Ethnic Studies Committee, which LA Unified unceremoniously disbanded last year, has been renewed by the district, and members agreed to meet for up to three more years with a goal toward incorporating ethnic studies as a graduation requirement, according to Derrick Chau, director of secondary instruction at LA Unified.

“We are moving ahead with districtwide ethnic studies, but there is not a clear timeline for when it would be a graduation requirement,” Chau said. “The committee is reconvening and we gave different options and they chose to meet for a period of three years.”

The committee was originally formed to look into creating a unified course curriculum that would make ethnic studies a graduation requirement. But last year, then-Superintendent Ramon Cortines voiced opposition to the idea and said it would be too costly, with estimates up to $72 million. Cortines scuttled the idea and the committee, even though the school board asked that the district make it a graduation requirement for the class of 2019.

“It’s a shame that this district was at the forefront of making ethnic studies a graduation requirement, and now has let it lag as if there is a lack of interest,” said Jose Lara of Ethnic Studies Now, who helped instigate the renewed committee meetings last week. Lara said that after LA Unified’s vote for the program in 2014, at least seven other districts in the state have made ethnic studies courses a requirement for graduation. He said that courses are already being taught in high schools throughout the district that could be the basis of a robust class.

For a year, the advisory panel tried to get the committee renewed while students protested and the school board even renewed their call to make it a required class.

Retired teacher Allan Kakassy, who was at the meeting where the committee was renewed, said it gave him hope that the district staff would finally be committed to the classes. Kakassy said he was disappointed though that only about half of the more than 50 former committee members attended the meeting.

“This is such an important class, especially in the political climate of the news of the day and the presidential election,” Kakassy said. “We should look at all sorts of classes like this, for example an Arab-American course.”

The district is encouraging individual high schools to come up with their own specific courses, such as ones involving Asian-American and Armenian-American studies, which some schools have expressed interest in developing.

Persistent protests have urged the district to revive the Ethnic Studies Committee.

Some high schools, in anticipation of this being a requirement, are already identifying teachers who may want to develop an ethnic studies class for their school, Chau said. He said the professional development training for the classes will be available over the summer online.

“In the fall it will be an option for some schools,” Chau said.

Meanwhile, the Ethnic Studies Committee, which was also called the Ethnic Studies Task Force, is opened to the public and will meet at least once a semester, with district staff in attendance, to discuss progress with the curriculum.

Chau said that the district is exploring ways to incorporate ethnic studies into other courses, such as English, arts, history and science. Meanwhile, they are continuing to move toward the class being a mandatory requirement, he added. However, they have dropped the idea of requiring it for the graduates of 2019.

Nolan Cabrera of the University of Arizona.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric going on in presidential politics and a potential state law have added a renewed emphasis on developing required ethnic studies classes in the LA Unified curriculum.

An expert from the University of Arizona spoke to an LA Unified school board committee this week to explain the importance of ethnic studies in education. He brought in some statistics to show the benefits.

“This is a very pressing educational issue,” assistant professor Nolan Cabrera told the Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee on Tuesday. “We need to know how to get along across differences. People like to knock these courses like it’s an easy class, such as basket weaving, but it’s not.”

In Arizona, pilot schools targeted low-performing students and gave them Mexican-American studies courses. The schools saw that attendance, class scores and graduation rates all improved, Cabrera said. Attendance went up by 21 percent, grade point averages went up by 1.4 points and students added 23 credits to their curriculum, Cabrera said.

School board members Scott Schmerelson, Steve Zimmer and George McKenna at the meeting all expressed support for the ethnic studies courses.

“I’m am continued to be troubled about politics in this country,” said McKenna, the only African-American on the board. “People who are running are running anti the concept of ethnic inclusion, and anti ethnic contributions and they are being celebrated for it. Now they have someone espousing with all the bombast that some people should be kept over here and some kept over there, and I know how that feels like because I rode at back of bus for the first 25 years of my life.”

McKenna said that he hoped that the Ethnic Studies Task Force starts meeting again, and asked to district to support the programs.

Derrick Chau, the director of Secondary Instruction for the district, said they are now developing a strategic plan for implementing ethnic studies across the district and are revising three English language arts classes to align with ethniic studies. Chau said the district is planning professional development for teachers, too.

Chau pointed out that the ethnic breakdown among the roughly 650,000 students at LA Unified is now 74 percent Latino, 8.4 percent African-American and 6 percent Asian. He said, “I turn to my own children who are of Asian and Latino decent and I think how beneficial it would be for the children of LAUSD and my own children to have access to these courses.” 

Jose Lara of Ethnic Studies Now is fighting for the classes throughout the state and said seven districts have already taken the lead in making the courses a graduation requirement. The LA Unified school board voted to do that in 2014, but the plan became stalled because of potential costs in training teachers and an estimated $72 million for textbooks.

“Those are bogus arguments,” Lara told the LA School Report. “Teachers are doing these courses with online resources and there are amazing classes going on right now throughout the district already. It doesn’t require developing a whole new training. LAUSD has been in the lead of this, but the implementation is stuck in the weeds.”

Lara and Cabrera were actually both students at UCLA graduate school and started the Raza Graduate Student Association together to support Latino grad students. “We would talk about one day bringing ethnic studies into high schools and look at us now, in two different states doing the same type of work,” Lara said.

Next week, Lara said he has meetings with district officials about starting the Ethnic Studies Task Force meetings up again. The classes are now in 40 high schools as electives.

After Lara’s presentation at the last school board meeting, Sylmar High School principal James Lee asked to bring ethnic studies to his school, and he contacted six east San Fernando Valley high schools about doing the same thing.

“It looks like this will be required for our ninth graders eventually anyway, so why not start as soon as possible? It’s a great idea, and the other principals are very excited about being part of the pilot program launch,” Lee said. “Next, I am going to ask for teachers who are interested in teaching the classes.”

Lara said another impetus for LAUSD is a bill sponsored by state Assemblyman Luis Alejo, (D-Watsonville) requiring every school district and charter school have a high school required ethnic studies course beginning in the 2020-2021 school year. Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill very much like that last year because it created an advisory panel that duplicates the work of the state education department. Lara said the new bill will most likely pass.

The San Francisco and San Diego school districts have already started on the path to required ethnic studies, and Lara said he is doing a presentation next week in Fontana for all their schools.

“We need the commitment and funding to get this going in LAUSD finally,” Lara said. “It seems like there’s a momentum and willingness now to do it.”

Zimmer echoed Lara’s frustration and said, “Many of us are extremely impatient about our approach to the implementation.”

Students protest Tuesday outside LAUSD headquarters to get ethnic studies classes.

Although an ethnic studies mandate was approved by the school board in 2014, LA Unified is only now taking steps to fulfill their hope of getting ethnic studies into every high school.

But it won’t be a graduation requirement any time soon, and it won’t be a requirement for the class of 2019, as the school board voted on two years ago.

“The class of 2019 are freshmen in high school now, so it would be unfair to require them to take the classes now,” said Derrick Chau, director of secondary instruction at LA Unified who is coordinating the ethnic studies classes. “We are moving ahead with districtwide ethnic studies, but there is not a clear timeline.”

Outside the school board meeting Tuesday, about 300 students, parents and teachers circled the Beaudry headquarters with signs and shouting slogans to include ethnic studies in their curriculum.

“It is important for me to know more about my cultural background,” said 11th-grader Juliet Dominguez from Santee Education Complex near downtown. “There is a need for ethnic studies, because a majority of my classmates are unaware of how our culture fits in with history.”

Jose Lara, founder of the Ethnic Studies Now Coalition, spoke at Tuesday’s school board meeting along with Dominguez and a few other students to ask the district to honor their own resolution.

“When LAUSD approved this two years ago, it sent shock waves across the state, but the ball was dropped,” Lara said. “Students should learn about themselves and learn about your history and fill in the missing pages of our text books.”

Jose Lara after he spoke with his students to the school board.

Superintendent Michelle King then announced that in March the University of California Office of President approved a one-semester ethnic studies class that will fulfill a college-prep curriculum class. It will be available to all high school students by the fall.

“That’s a good mark forward,” said King. Then she added that by May 1 there will be on the district website a course outline of the class, and eventually there will be six other classes in the ethnic studies curriculum.

The classes will include studies on identity and focus on four historically marginalized groups in the United States: African Americans, Latino Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans. They will also include LGBT issues.

The board passed the resolution in October 2014, but in May 2015 then-Superintendent Ramon Cortines said he didn’t support making ethnic studies a graduation requirement. Cortines said such studies should be included in the curriculum in classes earlier than high school. He was also discouraged by the multimillion-dollar cost of expanding the ethnic studies program.

Chau said he is working toward creating courses such as African American History and Mexican American Literature so they can become another element of a coordinated ethnic studies program.

Already 40 of the 98 high schools in the district offer some kind of ethnic studies course as an elective, and Chau said that he hopes to expand it as an elective into middle schools. Along with the basic ethnic studies class, there are three history and social studies courses and three English language arts courses involving the studies.

Desiree Martinez, from Students for Education Reform, also spoke at the school board meeting and talked about being a Latina student at UCLA. “I began to feel discouraged and questioned why I was there,” she said. “I was disheartened that there were more Latinos in the custodial staff than in my classes.”

Students marching outside the school board headquarters.

She said a fully integrated ethnic studies class in high school would have given her the support she needed to get to higher education, and she believes that some of her fellow classmates in high school would have joined her in college if they had such a class. King’s plan to renew an emphasis on ethnic studies is a start, she said.

But Lara said King’s announcement is not enough. “We need the district to do more, they need to recommit to ethnic studies and take serious action now,” said Lara, who noted that UTLA is also supportive of ethnic studies programs as a requirement. “They were committed for one year, but what about year two, three and four?”

Lara said he met with most of the board members and they individually support the idea, but he said the ball was dropped after former board member Bennett Kayser was voted out of office last year.

“The Ethnic Studies Committee needs to be re-formed too,” Lara said.

Chau said he still consults with the members of the Ethnic Studies Committee, but said their proposals are in, and they pointed out the cost will be in the millions of dollars for retraining teachers and perhaps hiring more teachers.

“It will cost several million dollars just to get books for all our ninth-graders,” Chau said. “We have to be smart in how we roll this out, we have to have the instructional materials and the teachers trained.”

He is already starting professional development for teachers interested in teaching the classes. And by next fall the ethnic studies classes will be available at all high schools.

It will be up to individual school principals to decide if they want to bring it to their schools, Chau said.

At Tuesday’s demonstration, Sylmar High School Principal James Lee told the students on his way out of the meeting, “I was inspired by what you said up there. I will put this on the fast track at my school as soon as I can.”

UTLA’s Jose Lara with NEA President Lily Eskelsen García

Jose Lara, a prominent leader of the LA teachers union, UTLA, was recently named the 2015 Social Justice Activist of the Year by the National Education Association (NEA).

Lara helped lead a successful grassroots effort to get the LA Unified school board to adopt ethnic studies as a graduation requirement. He is vice president of the El Rancho Unified School Board, dean at LA Unified’s Santee Education Center and a member of the UTLA board.

Lara received the award Sunday at NEA’s Representative Assembly in Orlando, Fla., which was attended by 7,000 members. The award honors the member who “demonstrates the ability to lead, organize and engage educators, parents, and the community to advocate on social justice issues that impact the lives of students, fellow educators, and the communities they serve,” according to the NEA.

“As I accept this award, I ask you once again to always remember that social justice is a verb and as Frederick Douglass once reminded us, ‘power concedes nothing without demand,’” Lara told the NEA crowd, according to a UTLA press release. “It is time we organize and start making demands.”

Lara led several rallies and protests outside LA Unified headquarters in the fall as leader of the Ethnic Studies Now Coalition, and spoke before the board in November when it voted to approve the new graduation standards.

The news made headlines around the state, as the district became the second in California to make ethnic studies a graduation requirement. (District leaders have since, however, expressed some reservations about moving forward with the requirement.)

“Educators have always been rabble rousers, activists and true believers,” NEA President Lily Eskelsen García said in a statement. “Jose Lara embodies this tradition, and his work illustrates how we make our mark on the world—as educators who understand the fearless power of collective action.”

School may be out for the summer, but things are not cooling down for the LA Unified school board as no less than three organizations are planing rallies or protests at Tuesday’s scheduled board meeting.

The LA teachers union, UTLA, the Ethnic Studies Now Coalition and a conglomerate of organizations in favor of the district keeping its A through G graduation requirements are all planning to converge on district headquarters. The three groups have significant organizing power and the ability to get hundreds of supporters to mobilize, which should make for a lively board meeting inside and outside.

UTLA is asking its members to “pack the board” meeting on Tuesday to protest the district having issued more than 600 layoff notices in the spring in response to a possible budget shortfall. The layoff notices were issued before Gov. Jerry Brown‘s revised budget included over $700 million in additional funds for the district.

“That is more than enough to rescind all the layoff notices and save all the programs threatened with cuts,” UTLA said in a posting on Facebook that asked for as many members as possible to file into the meeting. 

They better get there early.

The Ethnic Studies Now Coalition, the group that helped organize the movement for the school board to adopt ethnic studies as a graduation requirement in the fall, is also set to stage a rally. Hundreds of ethnic studies supporters showed up outside the November board meeting when the ethnic studies resolution was passed.

But now the future of ethnic studies as a graduation requirement is in doubt as Superintendent Ramon Cortines recently expressed his opposition to the idea for multiple reasons, including the estimated $72 million it would cost. The Los Angeles Times editorial board also recently published a piece calling the board’s disorganized ethnic studies rollout an “embarrassment.” The Ethnic Studies Now Coalition stated in a blog post that it is “mobilizing its community base” to show up at the board meeting.

Last, but not least, a group of major community groups including The United Way of Greater Los Angeles, Inner City Struggle and Community Coalition say they expect hundreds of supporters to rally ouside the board meeting and to “fill the LAUSD board room.” The supporters want the board to vote yes on the “Equity on A-G: Re-affirming Our Commitment to A-G Life Preparation for All” resolution.

The board had been set to vote on the resolution at its May 12 meeting, but the vote was postponed as hundreds of A-G supporters rallied outside.

“The community is making a call to all of our school leadership to help us create a lasting educational impact for students by voting “yes” on the A-G resolution and ensuring that it is backed by quality instruction and resources for students,” said Elmer Roldán, director of Education Programs and Policy for United Way of Greater Los Angeles, in a press release. “The resolution highlights the need for access and quality instruction and supports for students, and although the district has made progress in A-G accessibility in the last 10 years, it must raise the bar on quality,”

LAUSD Superintedent Ray Cortines

With Superintendent Ramon Cortines voicing opposition to the idea, the future of LA Unified’s plan to make the district the second in the state to require an ethnic studies course as a high school graduation requirement appears to be in doubt.

In a May 8 letter obtained by LA School Report addressed to the Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee that was also sent to the school board and other district leaders, Cortines outlined his view that while he supports the idea of the district offering ethnic studies courses, he does not believe it should be a requirement for graduation. Among the key points of the letter:

• “Although I am in agreement that schools should be allotted the maximum flexibility in implementing Ethnic Studies, and agree that courses should be made available in our comprehensive high schools, pilot schools, and Options schools;  I do not support the recommendation to make Ethnic Studies a graduation requirement.”
• “Ethnic Studies is not a requirement to gain acceptance nor is it a requirement to graduate from any college institution; therefore, I do not support this.”
• “I believe the timeline to ensure that Ethnic Students courses are provided for students is unrealistic. I agree that some aspects of this work should begin in 2018-2019, but the overall plan to implement what is outlined is not realistic.”
• The budget implications to implement the plan as proposed is not reasonable for the District.  The District cannot afford to invest $72 million over four years when many other priorities are unfunded and reductions to essential programs have been steadily made over the years.”

The LA Unified school board made big headlines in the fall when it became the second district in the state to require an ethnic studies course be taken by all high school students as a graduation requirement — El Rancho High School in Pico Rivera was the first. But a recent estimate by the district that it will cost $72.7 million — which was much larger than an original estimate of $3.4 million — along with the Ethnic Studies Committee’s recommendation to delay its full implementation makes it likely the school board will be reexamining the issue soon.

Ethnic Studies Now!, a group that helped organize the campaign for the ethnic studies resolution, is planning to stage a protest at the June 9 board meeting in reaction to Cortines’ letter. The board is not scheduled to be voting on any resolutions regarding ethnic studies, according to its meeting agenda.

The Ethnic Studies Committee, which was formed by Cortines as a result of the board’s ethnic studies resolution, is meeting today and will be discussing a reaction to Cortines’ letter, according to committee member Allan Kakassy.

Supporters of Ethnic Studies rally outside LAUSD headquarters (Credit: Twitter user @Manuel Criollo)

When the LA Unified school board passed a resolution that would begin the process of making ethic studies a graduation requirement, it did so without knowing how much it would cost.

But now, after a draft report from the Ethic Studies Committee was released last week, it has some idea, and it is not chump change.

The committee estimates it will cost almost $72.7 million over four years, an amount that far exceeds the initial district estimate of $3.4 million that was tossed around at the November meeting when the resolution was voted on.

“My concern is that there’s no money attached to the resolution,” board member Mónica García said in November before she voted in favor of the resolution. “Whether it’s $3.4 million or $30 million, an action without a budget is nothing.”

As it turns out, $30 million would have been cheap. In the coming school year alone, the committee estimates the cost to be $5.75 million and ratchet up significantly over the next several years. Much of the costs could go toward new textbooks and training staff.

While many district schools already offer ethnic studies courses as electives, LA Unified became only the second district in the state after El Rancho Unified to have an ethnic studies course required for graduation.

The Ethnic Studies Committee consists of district staff, teachers, university professors and others, and its draft report was presented at last week’s Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Committee meeting.

One of the committee’s key recommendations is a significant delay in implementing the new graduation requirements. The board’s November resolution called on ethic studies coursework to be required for graduation for the class of 2019, but the committee wants it to be delayed until the class of 2022, meaning incoming 9th graders in 2018 would be the first to have the new requirement.

Part of the reason for the delay is that creating a pilot program with a graduation requirement is not feasible, the report said. Instead of having a pilot program at 30 schools that would have ethic studies as a requirement, the committee recommended that the pilot program simply offer the courses starting in 2016-17 as electives, not as a requirement.

Supporters of Ethnic Studies rally outside LAUSD headquarters (Credit: Twitter user @Manuel Criollo)

The LA Unified school board last night took the first step in making ethnic studies a required course for graduation by 2019, making it the second district in the country to adopt such a measure.

The resolution, proposed by board members Bennett Kayser, George McKenna and Steve Zimmer passed with Tamar Galatzan casting the only vote against the measure, after a lengthy and (somewhat) confusing discussion on what the addition of the new subject might entail.

It was a rousing victory for hundreds of students, teachers, and community activists who were at the board meeting supporting the resolution even as the final version of the proposal passed with little specificity.

What the board did agree on is that the curriculum will be phased in over the next three years, beginning with a pilot program in at least five high schools. It will become compulsory for the class of 2019. The board also charged Superintendent Ramon Cortines with overseeing a committee responsible for making recommendations on how to implement the curriculum, as early as next semester.

Among the questions that remained unanswered is how much it will cost to implement the course across all 124 high school campuses in the district; how it fits into the existing curriculum; which ethnic groups will be studied; and, what if any existing required courses it may displace.

“My concern is that there’s no money attached to the resolution,” Board Member Monica Garcia said before she voted in favor. “Whether it’s $3.4 million or $30 million, an action without a budget is nothing.”

That sentiment was echoed by Galatzan who argued the board was “working backwards on the issue.”

“I would prefer if the task force met first… I truly believe that we should work these issues out first and then bring it back with the budget and be able to implement it the following year,” she said to a rowdy crowd that booed and hissed as she continued.

Galatzan said she fears the addition of a new course requirement will cause more scheduling problems of English Language Learners and Advanced Placement students who already struggle with having a limited number of elective credits available.

As written in the approved resolution, the addition of the ethnic studies as a graduation requirement will not increase the number of core credits needed to graduate in the district — currently set at 170 — which suggests that some other graduation course requirement will have to be swapped out to make room for the new curriculum.

It’s also unclear which ethnic cultures will be included and studied in the new classes. Hispanic and African-American students make up the majority of minority students in the district, but as the resolution states, “92 languages other than English are spoken in district schools.”

In a preliminary cost/benefit analysis of adopting the course as a graduation requirement by Cortines, district officials estimate it would “likely cost approximately $3.4 million.” And, additional staffing might also be required, according to the same report.

As Zimmer said, in an effort to win maximum support for the measure, “In some places, there is resistance , but what we do here today will bring down the walls of resistance.” He added, “We are losing kids because we are not connecting to their story.”

Manuel Criollo, director of the Community Rights Coalition, a group supporting the measure, said, “This builds a young person’s sense of self and empathy for others by understanding other people’s history.” He added that students who benefit from the course tend to be those who struggle to connect to academic subject matter.

“They’re the ones who connect with it the most,” he said.

But, he cautioned, “Passing the resolution is the first part. The real conversation has to be how much money has to be allocated so it doesn’t linger as an elective.”

Crowds of students, in matching red tee-shirts cheered the board’s nearly unanimous vote. “What do we want? Ethnic Studies. When do we want it? Now,” they chanted on their way out of the board room and into the streets.

The resolution was championed by Kayser who is up for reelection next year and is currently facing five challengers for his seat.

Cortines has until June 30, 2015 to come up with a plan for implementing the new curriculum.

During the five part meeting — which included three open sessions and two closed — the board also decided to deny the renewal application of Magnolia Science Academy in Bell. The members rejected the school’s five-year renewal application based on a report by the district Inspector General that found the charter management group is “fiscally insolvent.”

Jerry Simmons, a lawyer representing the school, pleaded with the board to keep the south LA school open.

“As of this morning, Magnolia has $9,462,000 in its bank account,” he contended.

But even before the board had a chance to hear from 13 speakers, some of them near tears, and all of whom argued to keep the school open, the board voted unanimously to close the middle school.

By Tamar Galatzan | Via Los Angeles Daily News

At first glance, the proposal to increase the number of ethnic studies classes in Los Angeles Unified schools sounds like a good idea. After all, students would undoubtedly benefit from a deeper understanding of their neighbors and themselves.

However, the resolution scheduled for a school board vote on Tuesday would also make Los Angeles Unified only the second district in the state — after tiny El Rancho Unified in Pico Rivera — to require ethnic studies for high school graduation. While this would be a big deal for students, the district has yet to study its impact on schedules, hiring or even its always-precarious finances.

Two years ago, the school board reduced the number of credits needed to graduate to 210, a change that ramped up the difficulty of academic courses and slashed the number of electives. With 150 credits now required for academic courses, 20 credits for physical education and five credits for health, there’s room in a typical schedule for just a handful of electives — the kinds of classes that many kids say are the main reason they stay in school.

Read the full commentary here.

The resolution was introduced by board member Bennett Kayser and would begin the process with a pilot program at five schools in each Educational Service Center during the 2015-16 school year.

The resolution has received the support of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the California Teachers Association (CTA), the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations and the Ethnic Studies Now Coalition.

“UTLA has always supported the idea that an engaging curriculum, with music, the arts, courses that help students explore their own identities, their own backgrounds, the backgrounds of other ethnicities, are critical,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl told the LA Unified board at its Oct. 14 meeting. “And so we are very happy [the ethnic studies resolution] is coming forward and we look forward to doing more support work around that.”

Members of Ethnic Studies Now are planning to hold a rally and press conference outside district headquarters before the Nov. 18 board meeting when the curriculum will be voted on. The group has started an online petition in support of the resolution and also took part in a summit on Oct.18 at Cal State Long Beach called the Campaign to Promote Ethnic Studies (CPES). The summit featured a speech by Kayser.

“Los Angeles is a really diverse place and it’s important that we understand each other. When we have had civil unrest in Los Angeles, it’s been — at least the way the media portrays it — one group against another group. As a result of ethnic studies in our curriculum, I’d like to think that would help bring an understanding so that we will have peace and prosperity through the city and through our schools,” Kayser told the crowd.

The board’s consideration of the resolution comes amid a movement statewide to require ethnic studies for graduation. Earlier this year, California Assemblyman Luis Alejo, a Salinas Democrat, introduced a bill that would require the state’s Department of Education to develop a task force to study the best way to implement an ethnic studies curriculum for high schools statewide.

While many districts offer ethnic studies curriculum, including LA Unified, El Rancho in Pico Rivera is currently the only one in the state that has an ethnic studies course as a high school graduation requirement. The El Rancho school board only voted this summer to make the curriculum required for the class of 2016 and beyond, according to the Los Angeles Times. The El Rancho School District was one of the hosts of the CPES summit and school officials were among the featured speakers.

While the ethic studies issue does not seem to have been met with large resistance in California, there are some opposed to the idea.

“Our nation was founded on principles of freedom and individual liberty and we are a meritorious society,” Jerry Mungai, president of the Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley, told NBC Bay Area while voicing the group’s opposition to ethnic studies courses. “We really don’t care really your ethnic background. We just want to know what can you do for us, for our society at large.”

Ethnic studies courses in Arizona and Texas have proved controversial. A Mexican American studies program at schools in Tucson ended in 2011 when Arizona outlawed it, and a movement to require Mexican American courses in Texas recently failed, the Times reported. Officials involved with the Ariziona and Texas courses also spoke at the CPES summit.