Central-South Gap Solved? Yes, Officials Suggest

HINSDALE, IL – Hinsdale High School District 86 has long grappled with unequal opportunities between Central and South high schools.

But since late last year, district officials have indicated the problem is mostly solved.

At the same time, they have provided widely varying data on course scheduling conflicts between the schools. They have declined to respond to Patch's messages about it.

South has long struggled to provide as extensive a course selection as Central, where enrollment is twice as large. Central also has a wealthier student body.

Even if course selection were relatively equal, it would mean little if scheduling conflicts are frequent. Typically, a smaller school is unable to provide as many sections of particular courses. That leads to more scheduling conflicts.

During a board committee meeting in December, officials reported that Central was able to grant 89 percent of course requests the previous school year. At South, that number was 68 percent. (In an interview after this story was published, Alex Mayster, the district's spokesman, said those numbers were described incorrectly at the December meeting. He said they actually referred to the percentage of students who had all their course requests honored.)

But at a committee meeting earlier this month, officials told board members that for the next school year, both schools "satisfied over 98% of total requests and over 80% of students had all of their requests filled," according to the minutes. (Mayster said in the same interview that 81 percent of all South students had their requests honored, compared with 89 percent at Central.)

"Courses with conflicts are distributed across all departments," the minutes state. "It is hard to find differences in the patterns across campuses."

The committee was also told that physical education classes were a "huge contributor" to scheduling conflicts.

The minutes do not state how the schools dramatically reduced scheduling conflicts in a year without a major shift in resources.

In February, Superintendent Michael Lach, who took the helm nearly a year ago, took heat from a couple of watchdogs when he appeared to dismiss the district's five-year effort to achieve equal course offerings at Central and South.

According to the Hinsdalean, Lack said the district had bigger curriculum questions to address.

At Thursday's board meeting, Lach expressed confidence in the equality between the two campuses.

He noted the long effort toward "alignment," which has been the school's jargon for providing equal opportunities between the schools.

"We've done alignment," he said. "We have a program of studies that's remarkably the same. We have one program of studies, and the course opportunities and availabilities are remarkably the same at both campuses. And most courses and departments are aligned."

Board member Jeff Waters agreed with Lach, referring to the information from the recent committee meeting.

"The data more or less indicates in your estimation and mine ... that it's time to bid a fond farewell to alignment and start focusing on other things," he said.

At the December committee meeting, Jason Markey, assistant superintendent for academics, sounded similar notes.

"We continue to spend a lot of time, as we have over the years, to really evaluate any of those differences that still exist," he said. "We know we still have a few spaces where we don't have complete alignment and offerings, but it's pretty minimized at this point."

Yet as recently as January, two school board members from the South zone expressed concern that the school was getting the short end of the stick.