A California school district is requiring students to draft social media posts in support of social movements, sparking outrage with a parents' rights group.
The Mountain View-Los Altos Unified High School District (Mountain View-Los Altos) uses a third-party curriculum for its required ethnic studies course, according to documents obtained by advocacy group Parents Defending Education (PDE) and shared exclusively with Crisis in the Classroom (CITC). The curriculum is modeled after one by the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, which states on its website that it aims to equip students with "skills to participate in community advancement, social justice and transformative change."
Goals of the curriculum used in Mountain View-Los Altos include teaching students to "critiqueempire-building in history and its relationship to White supremacy, racism, and other forms of power and oppression" and connect to "resistance movements that struggle for social justice on the global and local levels," according to the documents obtained by PDE.
In Mountain View-Los Altos, students taking the required course are asked to make an Instagram post expressing support for a social movement from a predetermined list. The list of nine movements students have to choose from include Black Lives Matter, the "LGBTQ+ Movement," "Immigrant Rights" and "Environmental Justice."
Students are also able to discuss an alternative movement with their teacher. It is not immediately clear how teachers decide whether to approve such an option.
"Think about how you want to tell this story," the assignment reads, according to the documents obtained by PDE. "You must have 10 slides: 1 for a title page, 1 for sources at the end and divide your remaining 8 between history, current events, and call to action."
Crisis in the Classroom (CITC) has repeatedly reached out to Mountain View-Los Altos to confirm which grade levels are currently receiving the assignment. According to the district's website, the ethnic studies course is required for ninth graders this academic year.
Caroline Moore, the vice president of PDE, told CITC that students are being "taught to view history" without "considering the full context."
“Teaching students to deny history, logic, truth, and fact sounds like a recipe for disaster and that’s exactly what is happening in the Mountain View-Los Altos Unified High School District," Moore told CITC. "Instead of teaching children history without an ideological bias, they are taught to regurgitate slogans from progressive activists."
"It’s no wonder why indoctrinated youth are spouting BLM rhetoric in support of Hamas terrorists," Moore continued.
Multiple Black Lives Matter organizations, including that of Chicago, have received backlash for voicing support for Palestine in the wake of the invasion of Israel. Black Lives Matter Chicago shared a photo last week of a Palestinian flag tied to a paraglider, which some likened to the paragliders usedby Hamas terrorists to attack an Israeli music festival.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation in 2021 requiring ethnic studies courses be implemented in each school district statewide, beginning with the class of 2030. The course has sparked outrage in some parents who argue its curriculum is "riddled" with critical race theory.
CITC repeatedly reached out to Mountain View-Los Altos for comment, but did not receive a response. This story will be updated if a response is received.