STATEWIDE — The College Board, the organization overseeing Advanced Placement courses in U.S. high schools, updated the framework for its AP African American Studies course on Wednesday, a class that received major backlash earlier this year from conservative critics.

“This course is a vibrant introduction to a dynamic field that offers a broader perspective," said Dr. Brandi Waters, who served as lead author for the class framework. "It invites students to develop analytical skills while examining African Americans’ wide-ranging experiences, contributions, and creativity, and the impact of the broader African diaspora on the world we live in.”

Waters is the senior director and program manager of African American Studies in the Advanced Placement Program.

The updated course teaches subjects including, but not limited to, the debate on reparations — but excludes mention of the Black queer experience, a topic supporters of the curriculum call “crucial and important” to teach.

Earlier this year, the Florida Department of Education banned teaching AP African American studies, saying parts of the course lacked "educational value.” The move came after Gov. Ron DeSantis said the class had a political agenda.

“I mean, is it a political agenda to want information about our own history?" asked the Rev. Sarah Robinson. "I don’t know — it doesn’t seem like that has a political agenda."

Robinson, who helps with an unaffiliated version of the class at her church in Central Florida, calls the updated framework a good start in helping schools become inclusive of their curriculums and the student bodies they teach.

Through the Individual Freedom Act, also known as the Stop WOKE Act, Florida has placed restrictions on how race-related education is taught in public schools.

“This is so necessary that every student has an opportunity to access this if they want,” said Robinson, whose church welcomed roughly 850 students to take a similar class on African American studies. “No one is forcing anyone, of course, to take this class. It’s completely optional.”

In January, several Florida students said they planned to sue the state if it refused to implement the curriculum into its schools.

Since then, the course that took more than three years to develop, had approximately 13,000 students in 700 schools across the U.S. participate in a pilot version of the course.

When developing the course, the college board received input from nearly 300 “African American Studies scholars, high school AP teachers, and experts within the AP Program,” the organization wrote in statement.

“One can only hope that having access to this information will at least give the opportunity for more safety to have the difficult but necessary conversations that we need to have around race, around gender,” said Robinson.

The new framework is intended to be used when the course officially launches during the 2024-25 academic school year. It is still unclear if the course will be taught in Florida schools.