Colorado Student Protest: Students In Arvada Colorado Fight History Curriculum Ignoring Civil Disorder and Social Strife; Declare 'It's World History, Not White History' [PHOTO]

This past Tuesday, hundreds of students from high schools across Arvada Colorado's Jefferson County school district streamed out of schools waving signs reading, "Civil Disobedience is Patriotism" and championing the value of learning about the more tumultuous chapters of American history. This comes in response to a new conservative school board majority in Denver that has proposed a school curriculum of promoting patriotism and respect for authority, and prohibits educational materials that encourage or condone civil disorder.

Fox News reports that the demonstration was organized by word of mouth and social media. Tori Leu, a 17-year-old protester, said, "I don't think my education should be censored. We should be able to know what happened in our past," further conveying the students' overall viewpoint. Griffin Guttormsson, a junior at Arvada High School, commented, "It's gotten bad... The school board is insane. You can't erase our history. It's not patriotic. It's stupid."

The board's proposal for the new curriculum has not been voted on yet, and has been put on hold since last week. Julie Williams, who created the proposal, stated, "There are things we may not be proud of as Americans, but we shouldn't be encouraging our kids to think that America is a bad place."

According to the New York Times, the new conservative board has drawn praise from Americans For Prosperity-Colorado, a conservative group affiliated with the Koch family foundations. On the other hand, the teacher's union has been in continual conflict with the board over kindergarten expansion and teacher pay.

So far, nothing is settled. However, in lieu of the protests, board president Ken Witt stated that some of the proposed language about not promoting "civil disorder, social strife, or disregard of the law" may be cut, and that "a lot of those words were more specific and more pointed than they have to be."

Michele Patterson, president of the district's teacher-parent association, commented, "We've had conservatives on our board before... they were wonderful. These people, they're not interested in balance or compromise. They have a political agenda that they're intent on pushing through."

Mr. Witt stands by the fact that he is dedicated to improving student achievement and rewarding educators for doing their job well. He stated, "I would rather be able to do those things without conflict, but at the end of the day, it's very important that we align with those goals."