The Colorado State Board of Education on Thursday, Nov. 10 approved final revisions to Colorado Academic Standards for social studies after adding the contributions of ethnic and minority religious groups as well as LGTBQ+ people in the teaching of social studies.

The final vote of the State Board of Education members fell along party lines resulting in a 4 to 3 result. The democrat members approved while republicans opposed. The decision will include adding references in the education material to all of the specific groups for all grade levels.

Before voting to adopt the full social studies standards for all grades, the board debated and voted on a series of amendments that were based on recommendations from the History, Culture, Social Contributions and Civil Government in Education Commission that was created by House Bill 19-1192. The legislature tasked the commission with adding minority groups into history and civics lessons in public schools. These additions included African American, Latino, Asian American, Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, Indigenous Peoples, LGBTQ, and religious minorities.

The final vote last week came after more than a year of discussion and consideration of thousands of public comments about the standards.

Board members also approved inserting the word “fascist” before the full name of the Nazi party, and including Rwanda, Darfur and Bosnia on the list of genocides that Colorado students will study.

The board was required to review all of the standards for social studies this year as part of the state’s review and revision of the Colorado Academic Standards. Additionally, House Bill 20-1336 required the board to adopt standards for Holocaust and genocide studies. Each school district and charter school has until July 1, 2023, to incorporate the standards for Holocaust and genocide studies into an existing course that is a condition of high school graduation.

Every six years each area of study regularly undergoes a revision process including art, mathematics, computer science, financial literacy, science, health and wellness and world languages.

The social studies revisions that caused the most controversy included the standards made to align with the 2019 law passed in Colorado that called for the inclusion of African American, Latino, American Indian, Asian American and LGBTQ people and their history, culture and social contributions.

After several revisions had been made and presented to the public in April this year the committee formed to oversee the revisions eliminated references to LGBTQ people and issues below fourth grade citing “age appropriateness.” Those in favor of including the revisions for all ages cited the importance of LGBTQ and students of color seeing themselves in the curriculum.

In the end, the board voted to restore many of the references of all of the specific marginalized groups to all grade levels.

Additionally, the board approved proposed changes to the Rules for the Administration of The Colorado READ Act. The changes include technical clean-up and policy revisions to align the rules to statute. The rules include five approved interim reading assessments starting in 2024-25, three of which include a Spanish-language assessment. All the approved assessments screen for indicators of dyslexia.