LHS To Be A Pilot School For New AP Course

Lakewood High School has been chosen as one of 60 schools across the nation to pilot an Advanced Placement course on African American Studies. The AP course will be in addition to the current LHS Studies in Black American Studies elective that was instituted with the 2021-2022 school year and has been very popular with students. If the pilot is successful, the high school is committed to offering the course for at least the next three school years starting with the 2022-2023 school year.

The course content will cover four areas:

Unit 1--Origins of the African Diaspora (8th-16th century)
Unit 2--Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance (16th century-1865)
Unit 3--Practice of Freedom (1865-1960s)
Unit 4--Movements (1960s-early 2000s)

The interest in the course is high among students with 64 registered to take it next year.

Director of Teaching and Learning, Steven Ast, felt that Lakewood High would be a perfect fit for hosting the pilot course.

“I know our social studies department would do this new program justice and help become a model for the AP community,” Ast said.

Lakewood High Principal Mark Walter is thrilled to be able to add to the school’s already expansive 200-plus course selection, including 18 AP courses. "We are always looking for opportunities to increase our Advanced Placement options for our students,” Principal Walter said. Next year, the high school will boost its AP numbers to 20 with the new pilot course and also an AP Photography course to be added.
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The AP course and the newer Studies in Black American Studies and Studies in Native American History are part of the district’s increased efforts surrounding diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging that include providing a curriculum content that better reflects the perspectives of all of its students.

The district has embraced DEIB work both researching and working to address systems and to impact the classrooms directly such as the high school Black and Native American history electives and expanding elementary classroom libraries to include diversity rich literature. Lakewood City Schools has committed as a district to use the lens of DEIB and Social Emotional Learning to all of its work and recently devoted a full day of professional learning to the topic.