The fate of the Jefferson County, Colo. school board’s disputed plan to review the AP U.S. History curriculum appears up in the air after a contentious meeting Thursday night that drew many angry students and parents.
The Jefferson County Board of Education voted 3-2 in favor of a compromise plan that would incorporate students, teachers and other community members into a curriculum review committee, according to Denver TV station KUSA. The board’s conservative majority voted over the objections of its other two members, who wanted more time to study the compromise proposal.
A Jefferson County Public Schools official told KUSA that the curriculum review committee approved Thursday night was not tasked with reviewing the AP History course at this point.
Text of the disputed original proposal that called for the creation of a curriculum board to ensure that course materials encouraged “patriotism” and didn’t condone “civil disorder” had been stripped before Thursday’s meeting. That language sparked two weeks of protests and walk-outs among students and teachers who felt that the proposed review, spurred on by conservatives who saw the AP History curriculum as “radically revisionist,” amounted to censorship.
It remains unclear after Thursday’s vote whether and when a review committee will tackle the AP History curriculum.
The Denver Post reported that the adoption of the new compromise measure “effectively scuttled” the proposed curriculum review committee that had drawn so much ire from the Jefferson County schools community.
Local TV station KMGH, however, reported that the disputed proposal “passed despite fierce opposition” from the minority of the board.
Still, the compromise plan did little to placate outraged students, teachers and parents. Opponents of the plan booed the vote and chanted “Recall! Recall!” at the board, according to KMGH.