Hinsdale D86 Leader Criticized Over Course Equality Remarks

HINSDALE, IL – Hinsdale High School District 86's superintendent, Michael Lach, last week appeared to dismiss the five-year effort to achieve equal course offerings at Central and South high schools.

And he praised "really fancy" schools when comparing them to Central and South.

His statements drew criticism from a couple of local watchdogs.

For years, Central, with its larger and wealthier student body, has offered greater course offerings.

In last week's edition of the Hinsdalean newspaper, Lach said board members have talked a lot lately about whether Central and South students have equal opportunities to take the courses they want and whether all the same courses are offered at both schools.

“It does seem that has taken up a lot of the oxygen for the past five years,” Lach told the newspaper.

According to the Hinsdalean, Lach said the district has bigger curriculum questions to address.

All seven school board members last year agreed they wanted to continue working toward equalizing course offerings at the two campuses.

Lach, who took the helm in July, did not return two messages about the issue last week.

Linda Burke, a Hinsdale resident who has attended board meetings since the 1990s, has generally supported the current board and superintendent.

But Burke disagreed with Lach's position in a message to those on her email list Thursday.

"Dr. Lach goes on to set up what I think is a false dichotomy, implying that we can't improve academic achievement overall if we resolve to achieve alignment of course opportunity," Burke said. "This is ridiculous. How will anyone's academic achievement be compromised if South students could take World History Honors and several other important academic courses not currently available at South?"

In an email to Patch, Alan Hruby, a Burr Ridge resident who has put out videos detailing the Central-South disparity, said it appears Lach wants to call it quits on aligning courses and providing equal opportunities.

"I cannot imagine anything more antagonistic to the Hinsdale South community than seeing him succeed," Hruby said.

As for the "oxygen" consumed, Hruby said Lach would find that most of it was taken up by Central residents haggling over what a common curriculum should look like. That was while South residents "sat on the sidelines just wanting the outcome to be accessible to their students as well," Hruby said.

Burke and Hruby also took exception to another part of Lach's Hinsdalean interview.

This was where he compared District 86 to other schools.

"When I go to schools I consider really good or really fancy, the Lab School where my kid goes, High Tech High in California, elite private schools in the East, I see a lot more of students doing the figuring out and less learning about," Lach told the Hinsdalean. "I see kids around tables have pretty deep discussions about intellectually serious things. I would argue that our kids can do that thinking or work, and we don’t give them enough opportunity to do so."

Burke disagreed with Lach's comparison of Central and South to "fancy prep schools" such as University of Chicago's Lab School, which serves kindergarten through 12th grade.

"My kids had teachers who encouraged all kinds of class discussion and creative projects," she said. "Is Dr. Lach calling for a return to normalcy with teachers back in the classroom and less money spent on curricular overhaul? Or is he trying to interpolate an overhaul more to his liking, also expensive, in the process disparaging our teachers?"

She also said elite schools have problems of their own, cost tens of thousands of dollars a year, select their students and "counsel out" those who turn out not to fit in.

Hruby questioned how course equality gets in the way of "intellectually serious" discussions.

"If Dr. Lach wants D86 students to have more intellectually serious discussions, what better topic could there be to start with than 'Why is Dr. Lach trying to derail Equal Education Opportunities in District 86?'" Hruby said.