LGBT history lessons edging closer to California classrooms

After multiple delays, California education officials are moving to comply with the nation’s first law requiring public schools to include prominent gay people and LGBT rights milestones in history classes.

A curriculum outline scheduled to be reviewed by the State Board of Education on Thursday would introduce the concepts in second grade with discussions about diverse families and again in fourth grade with lessons on California’s role in the gay rights movement.

The proposed outline also touches on the topics in the fifth and eighth grades and throughout high school.

In July 2011, California lawmakers passed the law adding LGBT people to the list of social and ethnic groups whose contributions to state and U.S. history schools must teach.

Its implementation was slowed by two failed attempts to overturn it, budget cuts and competing education priorities.