Three years ahead of the state mandate, all incoming high school students in the Los Angeles Unified School District will have to complete an Ethnic Studies course in order to graduate beginning this academic year. 1 of the 11 approved LAUSD Ethnic Studies courses is Get Lit’s Voices in Verse curriculum. 

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Since the LAUSD board passed the “Ethnic Studies for All Students Resolution” in 2020, enrollment in Ethnic Studies courses across Los Angeles Unified has soared by 300%, from roughly 8,000 students to more than 25,000 students, according to a presentation at Thursday’s meeting.

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Currently, 170 LAUSD schools offer at least one of 11 district-approved Ethnic Studies courses, including: African American Studies, American Indian Studies, Mexican American Studies, and one of Get Lit’s courses: Voices in Verse: Poetry, Identity, and Ethnic Studies. 

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“I feel represented in that class. It’s very nice, for a change, to be able to talk about issues that I actually care about … without having to take an extracurricular,” said a high school student who identifies as both Black and Latino in a video presented to the committee.

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The student added: “If you’re Black or brown … it does wonders for you. You get to learn about yourself, you get to learn about not only where your oppression comes from but how people have actively combated this oppression.”

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We’re so excited and grateful that Voices in Verse was selected to lead this exciting new wave of education!