About

Summit Public Schools has been open for 15 years, and this is the first time the course, Ethnic Studies, is officially offered to students. The course is currently offered at three sites: Summit Rainier, Summit Tahoma, and Summit Everest. Angel Barragan, a former Spanish teacher at Rainier’s site, is now the Human Rights, Ethnic Studies, and Independent Study instructor. After becoming an active member in 2012 of San Franciso State University’s Ethnic Studies Student Organization, Mr. Barragan also became president of the organization from 2013-2014 during his college years.

When asked why he started the Ethnic Studies class, Mr. Barragan said, “Since I graduated from college I always wanted to teach Ethnic Studies. Finding my first Ethnic Studies class in college was a very decisive moment that lead to empowerment and

finding a lot of success I have now. Prior to me knowing my own history and finding this empowerment, I was one of the students that would sit in the back of the classroom and not speak or just not participate in the class. As soon as I found this extra resource that made me feel different and made me feel like I could be successful, everything changed and I started leading organizations, leading meetings, taking more classes than I was before, and just feeling really ready to take on the world. It made me really upset that students have to wait until they got into college in order to be able to receive it. So I wanted to try and bring that here.”

He added, “I taught Spanish for the last four years and then when I got the opportunity to teach this class, I jumped on it to ensure that every student who wants to, can do that. But I think it should be a requirement and I really think that everyone in this school, in all schools, should go to something like this to be able to learn about themselves and what it means to be united with others.”

The Summit News team will be following the course throughout the year and this website will be doing the same to document Summit Public Schools’ journey with their first official Ethnic Studies class.