State education leaders last week approved plans to include LGBT history in all public school curricula, marking a major step in the fight for equality which LAUSD board president and District 4 representative Steve Zimmer said is long overdue.

The State Board of Education announced that it adopted a new History-Social Science Framework to update and upgrade instruction and content standards in California for K-12 schools to include LGBT figures, events, issues and contributions.

Joey Hernández, educational policy and programs manager at the Los Angeles LGBT Center said LGBT history will now be accurately represented for the first time and that the changes “absolutely” bring the LGBT community a big step closer to an equal society.

“I think the state board of education jumped leaps and bounds to incorporate LGBT history,” he said.

The state’s framework provides guidance to teachers, administrators and publishers for instruction on history and social science. It includes more than 20 detailed classroom examples that show teachers how they can integrate their instruction.

Zimmer said Dr. Judy Chiasson, with LAUSD’s diversity and equity human relations department has been working to make sure the district is fully prepared. Chiasson has testified and spoken about including LGBT history in the state’s curriculum and said she was delighted when the state department announced the new framework.

“Our job as educators is to teach students about the diverse society in which we live and the amazingly diverse people who created our country,” she said.

Hernández said second graders will learn about diverse family structures and differences in communities when it comes to immigrant families, “blended” families, adopted families, and families with two mothers or two fathers. Later, students will learn about gay politicians like Harvey Milk, activists like Harry Hay, the events at Stonewall Inn in New York, the LGBT influence on the Harlem Renaissance, gays in the military, the “Lavender Scare,” and the fight for LGBT equality in California.

There will also be a “significant amount” of curriculum devoted to transgender rights, including Mayor Eric Garcetti’s decision to launch the Transgender Advisory Board, among other court decisions on gender identity, such as the controversy surrounding bathroom access and court decisions like Student v. Arcadia Unified School District.

Officials said LGBT students are likely to feel more included, which improves thier opportunities for academic and social success.

“For LGBT youth to have the benefit of generational stories passed down is going to be particularly valuable,” Chiasson said.

Zimmer said it will help promote safer learning environments as well.

“Historically and even in the present, school has not always been a safe place for LGBT youth,” he said. “And as a matter of fact, at times it’s a very difficult and dangerous place.”

Hernández said many of the center’s clients are students and this “has been on the forefront of their minds” when talking about improving school climate. He explained that LGBT students feel safer and experience less harassment from others when LGBT curriculum is included and can build more opportunities for their academic and social success by making the school more welcoming and safe.

“When you’re a young person in school figuring out your identity and finding role models, you can look to your family or your curriculum,” he explained. “But LGBT students don’t have those role models. You’re most likely not going to find them in your family or in the curriculum, and you are not likely to find someone that you can relate or look up to.”

He and Zimmer said LGBT-inclusive curricula also benefit all students by improving overall school climate. Hernandez said strengthening the LGBT community in these ways will help accelerate entire communities.

School districts and counties will determine how soon the specific curriculum is integrated, but Hernández said some teachers have included LGBT lessons for years.

“We’re definitely in a place where teachers will be more equipped,” he said.

Chiasson said it’s hard to predict how soon it will be integrated into LAUSD’s curriculum. The district doesn’t write the textbooks they use. The publishers will take the new framework and submit textbooks to be endorsed by the state education board. When LAUSD buys new books, they will also vet them.

“There are a lot a moving pieces,” Chiasson said.

One of the most difficult aspects will be selecting which stories to include within the limits of a school year.

“There are so many [LGBT historical figures and events] that I know [the publishers] are going to have difficulty picking,” she said.

Chiasson explained that it’s important to remember that LGBT history wasn’t “missing” from LAUSD’s and other districts’ curricula and that many teachers have been “very responsible” by including diverse voices and lessons.

“[LGBT curriculum] was never banned,” she said, adding that California schools have always been encouraged to make curriculum relevant to the communities they serve.

Miguel Covarrubias, a teacher at Franklin High School in Highland Park said for the last few years, he has been teaching 11th grade U.S. history students about the LGBT civil rights movement.

“For many, it has been the first time they have experienced LGBT content in the classroom,” he said. “Some are initially uncomfortable until they realize it’s just about history, while for others, it makes a huge difference to know how they are part of the evolving American story.”

For the past two years, LGBT youth and advocacy organizations such as Our Family Coalition, GSA Network, Equality California, Los Angeles LGBT Center, and the ACLU, along with parents and educators, have worked to ensure that the History-Social Science Framework is LGBT-inclusive. They have been joined by the committee on LGBT History, which assembled 20 scholars of LGBT history from across the U.S. to make research-informed and evidence-based recommendations for LGBT-related framework revisions.

The new framework complies with the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act of 2012 (FAIR Education Act), which ensures that important contributions by LGBT Americans and people with disabilities are no longer excluded from history education. The FAIR Education Act added groups to an existing list of underrepresented groups already in the state’s longstanding inclusionary education requirement.

Zimmer said it was an important step but argued that the new framework is a benchmark in the struggle for total equality, and that the LGBT community has contributed to more in society than history and science.

Chiasson said the effort to include LGBT history is part of an ongoing process of updating the education code and framework to be sure students’ educations are as inclusive as possible. The framework has been revised many times to include contributions from women, African Americans, Latinos and more. And educators “take a step back” to see whose story has been left out before appealing to the state to revise the framework.

“This is yet another generation for inclusive curriculum,” she said.