Chapel Hill High School will take part in a historic rollout of the AP African American Studies course as one of the first schools in the nation to offer it.
The College Board introduced the course to 60 schools across the country during the 2022-2023 school year. Chapel Hill High School will join the second phase of expansion to approximately 200 schools. In the following year, the course will be available to all schools, and a final AP Exam will be administered in 2025.
“The AP African American Studies course offers CHCCS students an amazing opportunity to explore the contributions of African Americans to our country in an interdisciplinary manner,” Rodney Trice, the district’s Deputy Superintendent for Systemic Equity and Engagement, said. “The course lives beyond learning about ‘famous firsts’ and focuses on unpacking how African Americans influence literature, the arts and humanities, political science, geography, science, and other areas of society.”
According to the framework released by the College Board on February 1, the course will comprise four units: Origins of the African Diaspora; Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance; The Practice of Freedom; and Movements and Debates.
In addition to a standard AP Exam, the coursework includes a 1,200-1,500 word project on any topic the student selects in order to dive deeper into a topic which interests them. The project outline emphasizes a total of “15 class hours” to be dedicated to said assignment.
“The AP Program consulted with more than 300 professors of African American Studies from more than 200 colleges nationwide, including dozens of Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” the College Board wrote in a letter. “The public will see the extraordinary stories, artwork, documents and debates . . . that explore the richness and depth of African American history and culture.”
The College Board also aims to expand interest in AP courses, especially among Black students. Despite comprising 14% of 2021 high school graduates, Black students only made up 8% of AP exam takers.
“I’m really excited that the school is offering this unique opportunity to take this course,” Isis Chen, a junior planning on taking the class, said. “It is important for students to understand and explore the in-depth subject of African American history and how it affects our country today.”
The new course made headlines as Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida stated that he would ban the class’s “indoctrination of woke education.” The uproar came as no surprise as DeSantis famously passed the Stop WOKE Act in 2021 and the Don’t Say Gay Bill in 2022 to limit K-12 curriculums to conservative viewpoints.
The course has not yet been publicly criticized by any North Carolina lawmaker, but the State Senate Republicans did pass an “anti-Critical Race Theory” bill in 2021 that was eventually vetoed by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.
On February 21, 30 LGBTQ advocacy organizations headed by the National Black Justice Coalition published a letter calling for the resignation of CollegeBoard CEO, David Coleman. The letter accused the organization of a lack of transparency in their talks with the Florida Department of Education, calling the course’s introduction a “disaster.”
While the course has been officially approved to be taught at Chapel Hill High School, administrators have not yet announced which teacher or department will head the task.
