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Students Demonstrate Civil Disobedience At Jeffco School Board Meeting

GOLDEN, Colo. (CBS4) — Jefferson County students upset about a possible plan to review their curriculum, including Advanced Placement U.S. history, are again using civil disobedience to make their point.

Security guards escorted about a dozen students out of the school board's Thursday night meeting in suburban Denver after a number of maneuvers, including standing up and reading from their history textbooks aloud during the proceedings.

Some students who went to the podium to speak in place of other students whose names were called during public comment period were removed, as was a woman who yelled from the audience in support. Another student was able to read a passage about Malcolm X, but after his allotted time at the podium was up, the microphone was turned off and he was removed.

After someone blew a whistle, about a dozen students stood and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. They then gathered in the hallway outside the meeting and chanted "We are the future, let us know our past" before squeezing into an elevator and leaving.

Tim Palese, a senior at Green Mountain High School who read the Malcolm X passage, said students wanted to show the importance of civil disobedience in the nation's history.

"We wanted to prove that they don't listen," he said of the school board.

Among their demands, the students want the repeal of a curriculum review committee approved by the board last month that could study AP U.S. history. The board expanded public involvement on the committee in the face of criticism over a proposal from board member Julie Williams to encourage patriotism and downplay civil disorder in the teaching of U.S. history.

That proposal led hundreds of students to walk out of class in the state's second largest school district.

Williams has said she wants to make sure the class is balanced.

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By COLLEEN SLEVIN, Associated Press

(© Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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