Hinsdale D86 Downplays Disparity Again: Critic

HINSDALE, IL – A critic who has long focused on the disparity between Hinsdale South and Central high schools is presenting his latest evidence of the gap.

Last month, Burr Ridge resident Alan Hruby released a new video on the issue in Hinsdale High School District 86.

He accused the district of downplaying the gap between course offerings at the two schools. Three years ago, he asserted the same thing, and the district later acknowledged "a little oversight" in its data.

South has half the enrollment of the wealthier Central, so course selection at South is historically smaller.

In early November, Hruby gave District 86 officials an early viewing of the video, asking them to correct him if he made mistakes. He also copied Patch in the email to the officials.

In response, Superintendent Michael Lach said issues involving course selection and opportunities are "important, complicated and likely perceived in different ways by different stakeholders."

Hruby gave officials four days to view the video and make corrections. Lach bristled at that.

"I'll admit that receiving a deadline from a community member I haven't sat down with a copy to the press seems more like a 'gotcha' than an effort to make things better in our district for our students," Lach said.

On Monday, Patch left messages with Lach and the school board's president, Catherine Greenspon, about the video. They did not respond.

In his video, Hruby disagreed with the "gotcha" accusation.

"To suggest that my video might be a 'gotcha' is to ignore the history of curriculum disparity concealment that has permeated the D86 atmosphere for years," he said. "That concealment is not a one-off."

This school year, Hruby said, 55 general education courses at Hinsdale Central are not running at South.

Those Central courses are being taken by about 2,000 students each semester, he said.

Every March, the board hears a presentation on staffing for each school. This year, the administration presented a list of "low request courses" at South. In other words, only a handful of students requested them, so they were canceled.

The number of "low request courses" is far lower than 55.

That's because the district leaves out two other significant categories for courses offered at Central, but not South, Hruby said. He refers to this as District 86's "black hole."

One of the unmentioned categories involves courses not even in South's program of studies. This consists of 13 courses offered at Central, but not at South, Hruby said.

The other category involved 33 courses that got zero requests at South.

In 2022, Hruby said, a top district official contended zero-enrollment courses would go away as the district finished its alignment of enrollments at the two schools.

"Well, it's been more than two years now, and it hasn't gone away," he said. "Could that be why the D86 administration doesn't bring up the subject?"

For years, the district has pointed out that a few courses run at South, but not at Central. Prominent among them is American Sign Language. Last month, the school board voted to offer that course at Central.

In his video, Hruby said the district lectures about equity, but ignores the gap between South and Central. The full spectrum of abilities, he said, runs through both schools.

He said 31 percent of South's test takers scored at or above the Central median score of 610 on the SAT. At the same time, 26 percent of Central test takers scored at or below the South median score of 520.

"Yet South students must repeatedly fight against this recurring bigotry," he said. That "ignores the range of student capabilities at each school and instead stereotypes Central students as academically superior to South students and thus entitled to unique opportunities that South students don't deserve because they allegedly don't measure up."

For years, some South residents have called for changing the attendance boundary between the two schools to equalize enrollments and thus course opportunities.

But this is largely an unspoken subject at board meetings. It is considered politically toxic because Central residents near the boundary fear their home values would plunge if the line shifted.

Hruby has spoken for a boundary change before, but doesn't mention it in the latest video.