FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Teachers and administrators in Broward County were seeking clarity about whether or not to make the College Board’s Advanced Placement Psychology class available to students looking for opportunities to earn college credits in high school.
The College Board announced on Thursday that Florida had “effectively banned AP Psychology in the state by instructing Florida superintendents that teaching foundational content on sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal under state law.”
On Friday, in response to the announcement, Manny Diaz, Florida’s education commissioner, sent a letter to school superintendents saying that the Florida Department of Education was “not discouraging” districts from teaching the college-level course.
“The department believes that AP Psychology can be taught in its entirety,” Diaz wrote, adding that it must be done “in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate.”
The College Board later released a statement saying the nonprofit organization’s hope is that Florida’s public school teachers will be able to teach the AP Psychology curriculum, which will not change, “without fear of punishment in the upcoming school year.”
Anna Fusco, the president of the Broward Teachers Union, said on Monday that the recent conflicting statements had caused fear, confusion, and uncertainty in the district. Broward School Board member Sarah Leonardi agreed and said there appeared to be a strategy of intimidation.
“The word ‘confusion’ really is the theme for this whole situation,” Leonardi said. “This culture of fear and atmosphere of fear coming down from the state, I think, is very intentional.”
DeSantis, who is campaigning to be the 2024 Republican presidential candidate, signed a bill — that critics have come to refer to as “Don’t Say Gay” — into law to limit lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in the state’s public schools.
The law first prohibited classroom instruction to students in pre-kindergarten through third grade on sexual orientation or gender identity, and an expansion later applied to students from fourth to 12th grades. Parents also have the option to remove the kids from the class.
Fusco and other leaders said the local consequences of the policies that Florida Republicans pushed forward to help position DeSantis politically nationwide as a conservative leader were very concerning.
“They continue to keep wanting to scrub life to fit their own personal agenda,” Fusco said.
Without clarity, Leonardi said teachers and administrators will have to air on the side of caution not to end up getting caught up in the middle of a conflict between FDOE and The College Board. Steve Gallon, a Miami-Dade School Board member, said this is also an issue in Miami-Dade.
“You have to have clarity,” Gallon said. “That level of ambiguity that is now coming down from the state to the district obviously ... will ultimately impact the classroom.”
Karla Hernández, the president of the United Teachers of Dade, agreed with Gallon and she accused DeSantis administration officials of “really muddying the waters.”
The College Board and FDOE had already clashed on a new AP African American studies course. DeSantis’s administration wanted content about Black Lives Matter, slavery reparations, and queer life excluded.
“We want education and not indoctrination,” DeSantis said about his opposition to the course earlier this year during a news conference.
Miami-Dade’s first day of the 2023-24 school year is on Aug. 17 and Broward’s first day of school is on Aug. 21.
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