- [Narrator] Coming up on Inside California Education, take a deep dive into AP African American Studies, where students take an in-depth look at Black history and culture.

- Africa is the birthplace of humanity, and it is really important that people learn more about that.

(electronic music) - [Narrator] Meet the next generation of craft brewing experts.

The Brew Tech Program in San Diego is teaching students the art and science behind crafting beers from grain to glass.

(electronic music) Students are in the spotlight as their work fills Fresno Unified's new gallery, where creativity and learning come together in powerful ways.

- It's really nice knowing that my art piece that really means a lot to me was put out for people to see.

(electronic music) - [Narrator] And a volunteer-driven non-profit in Auburn is helping young students master high-frequency words, an essential building block of reading.

It's all coming up next on Inside California Education.

(electronic music) (gentle music) - [Announcer] Funding for Inside California Education is made possible by ... - [Narrator] The California Lottery is turning 40.

And together with players, retail partners, and our staff, we're celebrating decades of raising extra money for public education, more than $46 billion in four decades of having fun.

Thank you from the California Lottery.

(gentle music ending) - [Narrator] Imagine a credit union, where school employees are treated like the heroes you are.

At Schools First Federal Credit Union, everything we do starts with helping school employees and their families live better today and plan for tomorrow.

Learn more at schoolsfirstfcu.org.

- [Announcer] The Stuart Foundation, improving life outcomes for young people through education, College Board, helping all students own their future.

Additional funding for Inside California Education is made possible by these organizations supporting public education.

(electronic music) (upbeat music) (school bell ringing) (upbeat music) (Donald tapping on desk) - [Narrator] Creating this rhythmic beat isn't part of a music class at Susan Miller Dorsey High School in Los Angeles County.

It's actually a small piece of a unique advanced placement course, called "AP African American Studies."

Dr.

Donald Singleton is happy to give life to an often overlooked subject.

(tapping ending) (gentle music) - Thank you, give it up for those who helped.

(students applauding) - AP African American Studies is an interdisciplinary course.

It brings together history, art, music, political science, and so many other genres of study to emphasize the beauty and the brilliance, the resilience of Africa.

(gentle music) - In four units, focusing on the African diaspora, the transatlantic slave trade, reconstruction, and the movements and debates of Black culture, the course aims to educate students in all things African and African-American.

(gentle music ending) - Africa is the birthplace of humanity, and it is really important that people learn more about that.

(ambient music) - If you take a course in AP African American Studies, you learn things you would've never learned in your AP world history classes, in your AP US history classes, there are some bits and pieces of this in another classes, but there's no class that focuses on this subject.

- Before taking this course, I knew that a lot of contributions to society were from African-Americans and Black socialists, and philosophers, I didn't know the extent of the reach that they impacted.

- [Narrator] As a senior aspiring to attend a historically Black university, Brennen says this AP course has been integral to her high school journey.

- I thought if I didn't take it, it would be at a disservice to myself, because it's a resource that very little students have that I'm taking advantage of.

In the African-American Studies class, I can learn about something that's not only true, but also relates to me, and makes me feel empowered to learn about my culture.

(gentle music) - AP African American Studies was developed by the College Board, and began with a two-year pilot program.

Susan Miller Dorsey High School was part of that early effort.

But the courses faced significant opposition in some states.

It's been banned or restricted in Florida, Arkansas, and South Carolina.

- Susan Miller Dorsey High School was the first public high school in California to offer this course.

When we started, 60 schools offered it, then the next year, 700 schools offered it, and now 1,600 schools in the country offer this course.

And so I would like to see this course in every classroom.

- [Narrator] More than 115 schools in California now offer the course, among them, Valley View High School in Riverside County.

The popular course taught by Gabriel Arnold draws students of all ethnicities and backgrounds.

- I think one reason it's very important is representation, I do believe representation does matter.

Students are very hungry to learn about things that they feel is sort of hidden from them.

- Being in this class allowed me to really just appreciate, appreciate me, appreciate my identity, and appreciate what I have come from.

It makes me want to talk to other young Black girls like myself that have struggled with their identity, and it allows me to want to bring up the younger generation around me.

- As I often say to my students, "The more we like know about one another, the less likely we are to dislike one another", so it's really fostering this kind of community, where people learn about each other, and celebrate each other, rather than tear each other down.

- [Narrator] Opponents of the course, including political leaders in Florida, say it indoctrinates students to a political agenda, and teaches critical race theory.

Dr.

Singleton and other advocates of the course disagree with that characterization.

- I believe that some of the misconceptions about the course is that somehow we are speaking negatively about another race, that the whole course is designed to criticize another race.

That's far from the truth.

What we do think about doing is enlightening everyone.

Everyone should walk away saying, "I did not know how beautiful Africa was.

Had no idea all the things that came out of Africa", and that's what the key is.

- There's all this debate about how to engage students, well, a great way to engage students is have them learn about things they feel are relevant to them, and what's more relevant than one's identity.

African-American history is American history, so it's very important to learn.

- It's a course that deserves to be seen, that deserves to be on everyone's agenda, in everyone's program, everyone's curriculum.

I think once you walk into this course, and you sit into a classroom, you're gonna feel empowered, not only educated, but a better person than you were when you walked in.

(gentle music ending) - [Narrator] AP African American studies requires an end-of-course exam.

Students also complete an individual student project, presenting their research in class, and answering questions about their findings.

(gentle music ending) (upbeat country music) (students and instructor chattering off microphone) These students at MiraCosta College in San Diego County might look like they're enjoying a thirst-quenching beer during class, but they're actually getting one step closer to becoming certified production brewers.

That's because they're in the Craft Brewing Technician Program, also known as Brew Tech.

(upbeat country music) - This is a very mature industry, the beverage industry in all of California, especially in San Diego.

- [Narrator] Mike Stevenson is the lead instructor of the program, and a brewery owner.

He's helping students break into a tough industry by sharing his expertise.

- When I got into the industry about 10 years ago, it was kind of easy to just walk in a brewery, and be, "I'll work for free, get trained, trained up, and hopefully you'll hire me at the end of that."

Some breweries are over 30-years-old now, and it's not just kind of a garage space brewery anymore, so there's a constant need to backfill the entry level roles, and that's what we're trying to provide to the industry.

- [Narrator] Located in a county known for its craft brewing scene, this intensive 15-week program, taught by brewers already in the industry, train students on all aspects of brewing, including craft beer production, recipe development, fermentation processes, seller practices, and packaging.

After finishing classwork and labs, students complete an 80-hour internship at a brewery to graduate from the program.

- The benefit of our program compared to other programs in the area is we only take up to 18 students a cohort, or 36 students a year, so our classes are very, very small, and very hands-on.

- [Narrator] But don't let the cohort sizes fool you.

These students get a lot done.

Using brew tech's industrial professional-style tanks, and other brewing equipment, along with ingredients donated by industry partners, cohorts produce up to 12 types of beer, from IPAs to ales.

They call it "TCI on Tap", and they can't drink it all alone.

- Because we produce so much beer in the lab, we produce about 300 gallons a cohort, so being able to spread the love, and go to a local brewery, and hand them a four pack of cans, and be like, "We made this at MiraCosta College", it just kind of makes it full circle, they give you enjoy the product that the students are producing, and just gives us a quite a bit more credibility in the area.

- [Narrator] And the program doesn't stop at sharing their beer locally.

They compete nationally against other college and university brewing and fermentation programs in the US College Beer Championship, where MiraCosta College won the Grand National Championship title in 2021.

And they've been among the top three finishers every year since.

- I've heard so much about this program, it has a great reputation, there's a lot that you really need to learn experientially, and we're working with, you know, some very experienced successful production brewers here, and it's been a lot of fun.

- [Narrator] Melissa Greenfield has only been in the brew tech program for five weeks, and she's already familiar with commercial-scale brewing equipment.

- It's been really exciting to see all of this process firsthand, and you know, learn how to work with some very sophisticated equipment.

You know, a lot of those programs don't give you the hands-on production experience, a lot of it is more, you know, hypothetical, you know, on books on, you know, on paper.

- Let's get one of you off the computer to do a tasting, and we're gonna pass it off to Gary here.

So ... My ideal student is somebody that wants an entry-level role at a big production brewery.

They walk out with a Brewers' Association Safety Certificate, they have this experience behind us, they have a work experience, whether that be an internship, or a trained-to-hire situation, so they start off with nothing on their resume, and they end up with like seven or eight different line items.

- [Narrator] This is the only brewing program in California recognized by the Master Brewers Association of America.

More than 85% of its graduates are employed in the industry, both locally and worldwide.

- If you wanna be in the brewing industry, and actively like in production, this is the best program for that, because you learn what you're gonna be doing on a daily basis.

- [Narrator] Before becoming brew tech alumni, Diane Hilz, and her husband, Sean, were home brewers.

After graduating from the program, they opened the Roadies Brewing Company in the Southern California city of Vista.

It was a dream come true.

- This program will get you a faster track pace to getting into that brew house, and being that head brewer.

We have a 10-barrel brew house, and we have a small staff, I think we've got nine, nine people on staff, so we're six months in, and really enjoying it.

We plan to support the program, and help it to grow.

- [Narrator] Like Diane and Sean, other alumni and industry partners are eager to help brew tech grow, as well.

They donate high-quality raw materials, like hops and malted barley for ingredients, or detergents and sanitizers for cleaning.

Some breweries give students internships, or make it a point to hire alumni, creating a vibrant growing network.

- It's just a community of knowledge, and like, and help that if you ever, if I ever need anything, I can always ask Mike, "Hey, something's going wrong", or "This isn't working out", or "Hey, do you know this person that I need?"

Or something like that, it's just a very giving back community.

It's super collaborative.

Absolutely.

- So now we have these pipelines, and that's been our goal for the past 10 cohorts was establishing these pipelines, and getting industry interested in this program, and now we get contacted pretty often to see if we have anybody available.

You know, this week, I got two different emails saying "Who is available?

We need somebody right now", which is a dream come true.

(gentle country music ending) - [Narrator] Still ahead on Inside California Education, discover how young students are building a strong foundation in reading by mastering high-frequency words.

(electronic music) But first, students take center stage in an art gallery designed to amplify their voices, where creativity meets real-world learning through art.

(electronic music ending) (gentle ambient music) - [Announcer] It's a huge day for students at the Fresno Unified School District, here at M Street Arts.

Teachers and their students from TK to 12th grade are getting ready to open the doors for the Citywide Monthly Art Exhibit Art Hop, where galleries around Fresno celebrate the arts.

This is the Arts Education Center Gallery.

It's filled with students' creations, showcasing creativity for a cause, like this piece by sixth grader, Jaelynn.

- I made the drums, because I feel like that even all the different kind of instruments that you have, like can be any different instrument, and they're all different.

So when you bring them together, they can make really beautiful music.

- [Announcer] Bringing students together through art has long been the goal of Fresno Unified.

The district previously leased space downtown to showcase students' creativity, but this space is all their own.

This new gallery on M Street opened in 2024 as part of an effort called "Relevant Engagement Through Art and Literacy."

Jaelynn has brought her entire family to see how her small piece of art is making a big impact.

- The dark side is that even if you're like feeling down, and like sad, there's always gonna be a happy time.

And with different people, like different people can help you in a time, where you're sad, that'll make you happy.

- The vibe is happy, the vibe is celebratory, students are happy to see their work in a professional-looking gallery, their parents and families and community members are even more excited to see student work in the gallery.

- [Narrator] Alana Shapazian Hill is a teacher on special assignment for the Fresno Arts Education Department, and says, "Teachers are using art to explore real-life issues, like identity, justice, and what it means to be seen and heard."

This year's theme is about celebrating diversity, and fostering empathy.

- Art is important to the school district, because it's a humanity.

It's something that's gonna bring everyone together, it's something that builds community, and shares those stories.

So these are student stories, these are things that are important to them, and it's their amazing teachers that kind of bring that out of them, and that's what we need the students to know.

We need the students to know that they're here to share, and they're here to tell their stories.

- [Narrator] Turnout tonight is huge with music, singing, and families focused on their students' accomplishment.

The exhibit is curated, and a best-of-show winner is selected.

Each wall is filled with intentional art to teach empathy, and speaking your truth.

(ambient music) - Families come in, and it's just a look of awe, whether we're, you know, looking at ceramics, or paintings, or even media arts, we started to do some video with our students, they're just happy that their kids are self-expressing, and it's in a nice gallery that looks professional.

Sometimes those stories bring tears to the eye, sometimes the stories are just a celebration of their diversity of the community itself, and so that energy that comes into the gallery is really what makes us special.

- Art really helps me with self-expression, because I feel like I can put things on a painting, drawing page, whatever, without words, and it really says a lot without having to say anything.

I think it's really important to have diversity and empathy, I am a part of the LGBTQ+ community, and so diversity is something that is always important to me, and I also think it's really important, especially in recent times for the world to have empathy and kindness.

- [Narrator] With more than 50 classrooms taking part in "The Relevant Engagement Through Art and Literacy Program", the results are already starting to show.

More students than ever now have the opportunity for the public to view their work at Art Hop, and other special events.

The program has the support of district leaders, and the Fresno Unified Board of Education, providing art supplies, literature, and professional development, creating a lifelong impact.

Young Jaelynn is proof.

- I wanna be a teacher too, so I think I would be, I would wanna be an art teacher.

- [Narrator] And as for that best-of-show winner?

It's Daniel's Courageous Collage.

- I didn't know that.

I had no idea.

(Daniel laughing) It's pretty exciting to know that.

I've put a lot of effort and time into it, so it's really nice knowing that my art piece that really means a lot to me was put out for people to see.

(ambient music ending) - [Narrator] Relevant Engagement Through Art and Literacy kicked off in 2016 with 12 teachers from across Fresno Unified.

Since then, students have tackled thought-provoking themes, like freedom, what is home, and human trafficking.

(gentle music ending) (upbeat rock music) - [Narrator] When a student is stuck and struggling with those tricky high-frequency words, who are you gonna call?

(teacher knocking on door) Sight Word Busters.

- Good morning.

- Hi, good morning.

- Ghostbusters came to my mind when I was thinking about what to name the program, and so I thought, "Who you gonna call?

Sight Word Busters."

(upbeat rock music) - [Narrator] Sight Word Busters is a volunteer-driven, non-profit based in Auburn.

It was started in 2011 by former teacher, Linda LoBue.

Her goal, find a way to help children master one of the most essential building blocks of reading, high-frequency words.

- High-frequency words simply means those words that occur most frequently in our text.

They make up for little ones in the first grade, kindergarten and first grade, about 80% of the words that are in their little books.

And if a student doesn't learn these sight words, then they trip over each word as they try to read, and it really interferes with their fluency, and their comprehension.

- Start.

- We get a start.

Good morning to Dale.

Is that your book?

- Yeah.

- [Narrator] The organization aims to create a classroom, where every child's eyes light up the moment they recognize a word.

- Okay, let's find our word of the day.

- [Narrator] Not by sounding it out, but because they know it.

- Our.

- Yes.

- [Narrator] Linda, the volunteers, and current and former students say, that's the power of Sight Word Busters.

- We finished the page.

- Yes.

- [Narrator] Every student learns at their own pace.

With personalized booklets, and no rush, kids stay on a word until it sticks.

- So you can take this home, and good job.

- I like learning the words.

- That I can learn more words to read.

- And kids love it.

They really look forward to it.

They see you coming in, and they have such a routine, and then they tap the next student on the shoulder, and so it's really fun to see how each kind of classroom has its culture that way.

- Good morning, Jennifer.

- Good morning.

- D-O-E-S, does.

- Our teachers just love our program, because we're teaching a part of the curriculum of their curriculum that needs to be taught, and they don't have to train their volunteers, they don't have to really lift a finger.

We just provide everything.

- Why did you choose that one?

- Because it says ... - The value is just incredible and I think I would say how much they allow you to do with the kids, it just, it's amazing, actually, what happens, and I think teachers often need to see things for themselves, and see how it's going to work in their environment.

- Hi, Valeria.

Is this your book?

- What began in a single classroom has grown into a network of over 350 trained volunteers serving more than 2,300 kindergarten through second grade students across 24 schools in California.

In addition to new and returning volunteers, the organization also trains older students to become what they call Buster Buddies.

- Sight Word Busters is complimentary to all the other things going on around the student during his school day.

The kids are so enthusiastic to learn, and the teachers, and the principals, and everyone else in the system is very enthusiastic about the results.

- Oh my goodness.

She passed every word.

- Ah.

Good job, baby.

Give me five.

(gentle music) (bell dinging) - Class, class.

Give it up for Maya, she passed her sight word club.

(students and teacher cheering and applauding) - [Narrator] The team says Sight Word Busters is designed to benefit all students, not just those who are struggling with reading, they say it's also important for children who are advanced readers to have one-on-one opportunities with volunteers to help further build their skills.

(ambient music) - We train our volunteers with different strategies to be able to work with kids at different learning rates, with different backgrounds, and special needs, and we have strategies that we discuss, and share with the volunteers.

- Stop.

- What Linda says she didn't realize is how important this work would become for the volunteers.

Many of the seniors felt like they had a new purpose.

They found a meaningful way to give back to the community.

Some say working with the children and watching them make progress was an exhilarating weekly experience.

- That was the best way to find it, wasn't it?

-Sight Word Busters is a win for the teachers, it's a win for the volunteers, and it's a win for the students.

(ambient music ending) - [Narrator] That's it for this edition of Inside California Education.

If you'd like more information about the program, log onto our website, insidecaled.org.

We have stories from all of our shows, and you can connect with us on social media.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you next time on Inside California Education.

- That came out of African, and African-American music.

I loved it.

(students applauding) (gentle electronic music) (electronic music) - In line, so to speak.

And so ... (electronic music) - Class, give it up for Maya, she passed her sight word club.

(students and instructor cheering and applauding) - [Narrator] Funding for Inside California Education is made possible by ... - [Announcer] The California Lottery is turning 40, and together with players, retail partners, and our staff, we're celebrating decades of raising extra money for public education.

More than $46 billion in four decades of having fun.

Thank you from the California Lottery.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Imagine a credit union, where school employees are treated like the heroes you are.

At Schools First Federal Credit Union, everything we do starts with helping school employees and their families live better today, and plan for tomorrow.

Learn more at schoolsfirstfcu.org.

- [Announcer] The Stuart Foundation, improving life outcomes for young people through education, College Board, helping all students own their future.

Additional funding for Inside California Education is made possible by these organizations supporting public education.

(gentle electronic music) (upbeat electronic music)