GREELEY, Colo. — Colorado’s education leaders are getting closer to the end of a lengthy process to update the social studies standards taught in Colorado’s public schools. As the vote draws closer, the debate about those changes is intensifying.
“I’m here today because I deserve to be seen,” a student named Ash said standing before the state Board of Education Wednesday afternoon in Greeley.
“My gender identity is not dirty or adult content," said Ash, who is nonbinary. "It is not unsafe for children. And there are kids like me, in the school system, who are nonbinary, transgender, gay, lesbian or bisexual. Kids with two moms or two dads.”
As the board meets for its monthly two-day gathering this week, many of the public comments have been directed at the upcoming vote on those social studies standards.
“I’m a concerned citizen, grandparent and retired elementary school teacher,” said a man named John from Colorado Springs.
“The originally recommended changes to the standards reflected a wave of social justice activism that has seeped into too many of our schools," John said. "Those standards, if adopted, will surely drive many more thousands of parents to give up on public schools and take refuge in the growing number of other options in which they can be more assured that the focus will be on academics rather than activism.”
A new Colorado law is guiding the standards review. HB-1192, signed into law in 2019, requires public schools to include the historical, cultural, and social contributions of several minority groups when teaching history and civil government of the United States and the state of Colorado. It lists those specific groups: American Indians, Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans and the LGBTQ community. Educators are also allowed to go further.
The legislation also created the 1192 Commission, a diverse group appointed by the governor, the commissioner of education, and the president of the state historical society. That group was tasked with making recommendations to the Colorado Department of Education about what changes should be added to the state standards.
Then, a different committee – the Social Studies Review Committee -- began the process of reviewing the recommendations, gathering public feedback, and making revisions.
The committee received a large volume of feedback both in favor of the recommended changes, and in opposition. The Social Studies Review Committee revised the standards again to reflect some of those concerns. That included removing all references to “LGBTQ” in the social studies standards for students younger than fourth grade.
“The problem with the LGBTQ issues are not inclusion or exclusion, but whether the discussion of sex in its various forms is appropriate for kindergartners," Steve Durham, a Republican state board of education member, said in April.
RELATED: Colorado Board of Education debates whether LGBTQ discussions belong in lower-grade classrooms
Months later, the public is still giving feedback during board meetings.
“Love is love, and when we teach kids about LGBTQ+, we're not talking about their sexual encounters. We’re talking about their stories and perspectives,” said Eva, a student from Fort Collins who told the board she grew up in a family with two mothers.
The updated revisions also removed several references listing specific minority groups. In some cases, those were simply crossed out. Sometimes those references were replaced with something less specific, like “diverse” or “multiple” perspectives.
“If I have a 'multiple perspective,' it could come from not liking cheese versus liking cheese,” said Annette Bowser while pointing out one such revision. “It doesn’t have anything to do with race or culture when you just add the word ’perspective.’”
Bowser, who said she represented the Black Democratic Legislative Caucus, was part of a community meeting earlier this month including other organizations and advocates also disappointed in the latest draft of the social studies standards. The group is working to gather more support for the original recommendations and sway the board to vote accordingly.
“We had those expectations. And now we are in a place where we're still having to defend and make sure this State School Board of Education knows what the legislative intent was of this policy,” said Democratic State Rep. Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, who was one of the original sponsors of HB-1192.
“Now we have to act. We have to go to the state school board and we have to go to the Board of Education and tell them why they need to listen to us.”
“We know from research that if kiddos see themselves in real life in curriculum and in studies, they feel better about themselves. The bullying numbers go down. What [HB-1192] does is make it a safer place for everybody and a better society,” said Mardi Moore, Executive Director of Out Boulder County. “Our governor is an out gay man. Will that be wiped out of our history books?”
The State Board of Education won’t vote on the minority groups' history and contributions standards until later this year, likely in November. But at the last several monthly meetings, the board has voted on parts of the other social studies standards recommendations.
On Wednesday, the board voted 4-3 to approve both the Civics Standards and Media Literacy Standards recommended by a review committee.
The Democratic-majority board voted down a proposal from Republican Board Member Debora Scheffel, who recommended starting over with a new civics standard model. Scheffel pointed out Colorado's poor rating from the Fordham Institute's State of State Standards for Civics and U.S. History.
That proposed model, American Birthright, is backed by several conservative groups.
“I tried to amend the current document, and I couldn’t do it and end up with an inadequate, parsimonious document. I tried a number of attempts, but it just didn’t lend itself to it. So I felt like, what if we could find another set. I thought this particular iteration, American Birthright, could be a starting place that I know would have to be made specific for Colorado based on additional statutes.”
The American Birthright amendment failed in a 4-3 board vote, along party lines.
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