Category: Hinsdale 86
Sterigenics: Ripple Effects Will Continue
As most of us who have lived and worked in the Willowbrook area know, the Sterigenics medical-instruments sterilization plants located there released ethylene oxide (EtO) into the atmosphere over the last 35+ years (1984-2019). EtO, as we have also learned, is a well-known carcinogen and causes increases in various cancers for those who breathe it in or absorb it through their skin. Thanks largely to the grassroots organization, Stop Sterigenics, the Willowbrook plant has now been permanently closed down, and we can all breathe a literal sigh of relief. But what about that figurative one…?
Given my melodramatic flourishes, clearly I don’t believe this is anywhere near over yet. Most obviously, there are many companies and plants throughout the country still using EtO and releasing this carcinogen into the air of densely populated areas—Waukegan and Gurnee to name two in Illinois, for example. And true to its charter, you will find Stop Sterigenics people helping in those battles, to say nothing of the work various individuals are doing at a national level to eliminate this health threat. But there are other unintended consequences of this pollution which have yet to be adequately addressed, even in the Willowbrook area. One which hits very close to home for me is the notification of those who were exposed to Sterigenics’s poison, especially to individuals who came into contact with EtO only because of their work.
I won’t belabor this point since I’ve already covered it several times in other essays in relation to my past employer (Hinsdale Township High School District 86 for which I worked at Hinsdale South—three-quarters of a mile from the Sterigenics plants—for 25 years), but there has been very little in the news about any efforts to inform everyone impacted about the potential health consequences from EtO exposure over the course of years. You can hear about those consequences quite clearly in a CBS This Morning piece, which features five of my old colleagues who bravely explain what ethylene oxide has done to them while advocating for more thorough notification of everyone, to say nothing of trying to get EtO out of populated areas. There really needs to be a comprehensive solution to notifying everyone rather than individuals trying to lobby their past employers to let other past employees know about the risks. We also need to come together to fight this pollution, rather than harping at victims: There have been those who have reacted to the efforts I and my ex-colleagues have taken to complain that we’re not emphasizing notification of ex-students enough. Of course everyone who has been exposed needs to understand what has happened; I focused on those I thought were least likely to be aware of the dangers due to their having left the area in retirement, often far away from Willowbrook, who had a smaller chance to learn of what was happening in Willowbrook, much less realizing that Hinsdale South was a hot spot for cancer developing. Then too, individual organizations and businesses have to step up until a broader notification process has been worked out. I’ve already advocated that Hinsdale 86 (my old district) do much more for past employees, but I’ve come to believe that the district isn’t doing all that much to help current employees—most of whom have also been exposed to years of EtO—cope with what has happened to them, or even provided them with adequate information to understand health risks and legal rights. The Hinsdale High School Teachers Association (HHSTA), for which I served as president, chief spokesperson, and grievance chair for many years, wouldn’t even allow me to attend one of their meetings to spread the word, telling me it wouldn’t be “appropriate” for me to attend one of their “sanctioned” meetings to discuss Sterigenics.
So, we have a long way to go on notification of those who lived and worked in the Willowbrook area (generally speaking, a radius of six miles from the now-closed plants, according to the latest information) from 1984-2019 who need to know about things like EtO-caused cancers, medical monitoring, legal rights, and support groups. And when you multiply the Willowbrook area by over 100 other areas where EtO is still being used, you get a sense of how immense this task will be. This job will take years and significant effort from many, but it needs to be done. After eliminating EtO from all populated areas, the next key issue is to inform those located close to these cancer hot spots what happened and what they can do about it.
Another area which needs to be considered is the cost of health insurance. As a teacher contract negotiator for most of my 33-year education career, I understand better than most how important health insurance is to everyone. And as health care costs have sky-rocketed over the years, more and more of that expense has been shifted to employees in the form of a larger percentage of premium costs. In District 86, to use an example with which I have experience, we negotiated a fixed dollar amount each year that teachers would contribute to insurance costs based on the district’s experience in previous years. For subsequent years, we agreed that the district would absorb the first 10% of health insurance increases from year to year, but any additional increases would be shared equally by the district and teachers. Thus, if the expenses went up 16% over the previous year, teachers would shoulder another 2% of the total costs that year (16% increase minus the board’s agreed upon 10% divided by 2 would come to 2%). Whatever that 2% increase translated to would be deducted from our checks each month. (The current teacher contract in District 86 is significantly more expensive for employees than what we negotiated fifteen years ago—the district and employees split the first 8% of increase from year to year, and the teachers shoulder 100% of any increase over 8%. The language on this appears on page 56 of the contract.)
But those increases were affected by the reality that we were working in sick buildings from 1984 on. In other words, our individual health issues were skewed negatively due to the fact that we were all breathing in ethylene oxide every day at work, which led to the increase in the cancers we’ve previously referenced. And that caused an increase in insurance premiums for all teachers. In other words, those whose health was being hurt by the gas were also paying more for the “privilege” of working in a toxic environment. It would make for a great lesson in irony if it weren’t so tragic.
This is a really tough one to rectify. Do we go back and try to get the district to pay back whatever percentage of increase was due to Sterigenics? Should the district sue Sterigenics to recover excess insurance costs? How would you calculate what that number would be? I guess all the health records available could be examined to determine which charges were most likely to have been EtO-related, but you can easily see how challenging it would be to come to any sort of consensus on what that figure would be, to say nothing of trying to find the people who merited compensation (see the previous notification challenge for more on that), which doesn’t even begin to deal with the huge battle-ground of who would be supplying the cash for these reimbursements. Rather than go through all that, I would suggest that current residents and employees in the affected area should receive a reduction or freeze in whatever their insurance contributions and deductibles are for some period of time in the future. In District 86, for example, the teachers’ union could negotiate more favorable numbers for the duration of their next contract (say, four years). No, that wouldn’t compensate retirees, but at least it would be a sort of acknowledgement that employees and residents had been supplementing the costs of being subjected to toxic gas. It’s hardly a fair solution, but a reasonable one given the scope and complexity of the problem.
The last ripple of Sterigenics’s legacy, at least for now, has to do with property values. From what science tells us about EtO, it dissipates and vanishes within 69-140 days once it is released into the atmosphere. Since Sterigenics has not been operating in Willowbrook for some time now and has lost its lease to reopen, there is really little to fear anymore, at least when it comes to living anywhere in the area where the plants used to be and EtO exposure. But the reality about reputations is that they can be established instantly yet take an inordinate amount of time to change. The Willowbrook plants have not been releasing any EtO since they closed in February 2019, almost a year now, which experts tell us means that nobody is currently inhaling any of the gas which Sterigenics released over the years in or around Willowbrook. But, I would bet that real estate prices in Willowbrook remain depressed compared to surrounding areas, and that it will take years for them to recover.
This is a hard fact to pin down. Those seeking to relocate to this area probably won’t publicly state they’re trying to avoid neighborhoods close to where the Sterigenics plants were located, but given the publicity the story has gotten, it is possible many will have a general dread of Willowbrook without the more nuanced awareness that any residue from the EtO gas has long since been eliminated, given the February 15 closure—which in late January 2020 is roughly double the longest estimate of how long EtO exists in the environment once it is released. Long, complicated sentences aside, it’s going to take some time for the Willowbrook real estate market to recover from this black mark on its environmental quality. I don’t know what else can be done about this except to keep pumping the facts into the system, to make sure everybody is regularly reminded that although this dangerous carcinogen was emitted daily for decades, it no longer poses a threat to anyone new to the area. That we still don’t know how many more cancer victims will be found from those exposed over the years is still another reason to keep public awareness of the issue at the forefront. Yes, I recognize the seeming paradox of constantly reminding everybody of the harm EtO can cause while at the same time helping everyone new to the area to understand that EtO is no longer a threat to them. Nobody said this was going to be a simple or easy path.
And that awareness is necessary for the overriding concern of which Sterigenics should remain a clear example: Experimenting on the public through the release of any substance when we don’t fully understand health risks cannot be allowed to continue. From fentanyl, opioids, and thalidomide to ethylene oxide, alar, and DDT; humans have to recognize that there is a down side to everything. Just because our creativity and intelligence allow us to achieve miraculous feats every day doesn’t mean we don’t have to be on highest alert to safe-guard ourselves against harmful side effects leading to an overall negative effect. No matter how cost-effective the sterilization of medical instruments has been thanks to EtO, that does not justify the immense harm we now know it has caused. Other means of processing medical instruments exist, and we should have been more careful about using what was already a known danger in such heavily populated areas. That’s especially important to keep in mind when we see a letter from the EPA written to Sterigenics in 1984, months before the Willowbrook plants opened, suggesting it wouldn’t be in the best interests of the residents for Sterigenics to be releasing EtO. We need to reaffirm our commitment as moral human beings that we will not knowingly risk the health of others to increase the profits of corporations.
Unfortunately, we can’t let go of the Sterigenics problem anytime soon, despite everyone’s desire to move on and focus on more interesting topics like what Bernie and Elizabeth are fighting about or just why Meghan and Harry are fleeing to Canada. At least there are positive ways to keep Sterigenics in the news: Recognizing the heroes at Stop Sterigenics with as many awards and as much praise as possible is the best way I know to help mitigate the harm EtO release has done to our community. As 2019 plaudits are announced through various forums, I would nominate Stop Sterigenics (and specifically, one of its driving forces, my ex-student, Urszula Tanouye who has led the notification battle) as champions, both for what they have done, but more importantly, for their continued efforts. This isn’t over yet, folks.
Sterigenics: Hinsdale 86 Should Finish Its Notification Obligation
In my last essay, I chastised the Hinsdale Township High School District 86 (Hinsdale 86) for refusing to notify its past employees about the health risks associated with working in Hinsdale South High School which was polluted with a known carcinogen, ethylene oxide (EtO), released by the Sterigenics Willowbrook plants for the past 35 years. I’ve also explained my personal stake in this issue and what has led me to working to increase notification of possible Sterigenics victims.
To follow up and give credit where it is due, Hinsdale 86 has now sent out notifications to some of its past employees. As one of the district’s traditions, teachers who have worked in Hinsdale 86 for twenty-five years are initiated into an honorary society, the Quarter Century Club, while support-staff members (custodians, secretaries, aides, for example) with fifteen years’ experience are inducted into the Crystal Club. (Long-time readers of this blog may remember some controversy which surrounded these Clubs in 2016.) And since the district already had a list of contact information for these individuals used to mail out invitations to each year’s induction ceremony, it sent a letter to these past employees which indicated the Village of Willowbrook’s having concerns about Sterigenics and the release of ethylene oxide, directing recipients to the Sterigenics page on the Hinsdale 86 web page. So, kudos to Hinsdale 86 for letting some 231 past employees know that something was up with Sterigenics. Although I have many reservations about the efficacy of this notification in both its coverage and the information provided, Hinsdale 86 at least has begun to do the right thing by its past employees.
It would be dishonest for me to imply that this measure is enough, though. The group of teachers and support-staff members notified is only a fraction of those who were impacted by EtO from 1984 (when Sterigenics began polluting the Willowbrook area) until 2019 when the plants were finally closed. It’s not clear how many past Hinsdale 86 employees did not receive this notice, but a conservative estimate would place that number in the hundreds. And even if it were less than that, when the issue is someone’s health, failure to notify even one person is one too many missed. To illustrate the sorts of people this coverage will not notify, I know of one past employee who worked at South for 23 years, has breast cancer which is related to EtO exposure; and got no notification from the district.
When the board decided to reject my previous request to notify all past employees, those opposed cited two reasons for their reluctance: 1. Notification could put the district at legal risk; and 2. It would be too much work for too little return. (You can hear the discussion for yourself at 1:35:15 of this video as well as my request at 0:07:00, in an earlier video.) But the recent notification of Quarter Century and Crystal Club members puts one of those rationales to rest: The district seems to understand it faces little to no risk of lawsuits being generated by its admission that South’s air was polluted. I and some who are part of Stop Sterigenics (a group of local, heroic activists which has been instrumental in getting EtO out of Willowbrook, and are now generating a national following) have looked into this, and it would appear that only the organization behind the pollution could be subject to legal liability in notifying past employees. There are some regulations regarding what an employer who produced the pollution—in this case Sterigenics releasing EtO—has to do to let its ex-employees know about health risks, but organizations which had nothing to do with the poison except to be located near the original source are not subject to any of these regulations or responsibilities. Long-term environmental health risks on job sites adjacent to polluters nearby is a relatively recent phenomenon, and the laws governing them haven’t yet caught up to what has been happening, especially in the Willowbrook area.
The good news is that Hinsdale 86’s objections based on being sued by ex-employees seems unfounded based on the best information available. And if you watch the video of board members discussing this, you will hear that no one offers any documented evidence of this concern, but just speculate based on personal experiences with the law. Hinsdale 86 faces little legal risk for notifying past employees. Even if it did, sending out a notification letter to over 200 past employees suggests the district is accepting that risk, again making the overall argument moot. It makes little sense, then, not to finish the job and notify all past employees who were exposed to EtO.
Which leaves “It’s too much work for what we might get out of it” as the sole argument preventing the school board from instructing its Human Resources department to try to contact the other impacted employees from 1984-2019. I can’t pretend to have the slightest objectivity when it comes to placing a value on the time and effort it would take to locate people whose health might be improved by finding out about a health risk which could negatively impact them. I also won’t agree or accept that even if HR has to use many hours of the department’s time to impact somebody’s life—even if it’s only one—that expenditure would be a waste. Keep in mind that the people who have been affected are in that situation only because they worked for the organization expending its resources to locate them. I do not believe the taxpayers of Hinsdale 86 would ever consider such time used for those who devoted their careers to educating the community’s children as a “waste.” And the board should also understand that this callous reasoning certainly will not stop those of us from continuing to battle for more and better notifications for past employees.
Nobody I’ve talked to about this issue has ever suggested that Hinsdale 86 is responsible for the sword of Damocles which hangs over past employee’s heads; but some of us are definitely starting to wonder at the hesitation being shown to do what is obviously the right thing, the human thing, the kind thing, the reasonable thing, the moral thing, and—without question—the only thing to do. Hinsdale 86 should notify all its past employees as soon as possible.
For more on how public schools can be improved, you can check out my e-book, excerpts of which can be seen here.
Sterigenics: The Hinsdale 86 School Board Should Do the Right Thing
For those of us who have been impacted by Sterigenics’s pollution (the medical instrument sterilization company whose plants released ethylene oxide [EtO], a colorless gas and known carcinogen) located in Willowbrook, Illinois, it came as wonderful news when Sterigenics announced on September 30th, that it would be permanently closing its Willowbrook plants and leaving town, forever we hope, after polluting the surrounding area since 1984. Ironically enough, I happened to be receiving an infusion at my oncologist’s office that morning to treat my chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) which was caused by my EtO exposure during a 25-year teaching career at Hinsdale South High School, located a mile from the now defunct Sterigenics plants. My wife—the victim of two miscarriages, the premature birth and death of our daughter, and breast cancer (which can all be attributed to her twenty years at South breathing in EtO)—sat with me during the three-hour procedure. Needless to say, we’ve been supporters of the Stop Sterigenics movement and are very happy that this silent killer won’t be released into this area’s air any more.
Those who led the fight to stop this huge corporation with its significant political connections and high-priced law team deserve everyone’s appreciation and admiration. I’m especially proud that several of the grass-roots locals who assumed leadership in this movement were graduates of Hinsdale South, including a couple who were freshmen in my English classes at South many years ago. We all owe a huge debt to the Stop Sterigenics troops and can learn much about determination, community, and organization from this stalwart group.
And that leads to the mixed bag of outcomes that Sterigenics’s Willowbrook departure brings with it. On the one hand—and most importantly by far—there is now one less dangerous source of pollution which causes harm to human beings. Unfortunately, the long-term impacts of decades of exposure to a known carcinogen have yet to be addressed; or, in at least one case, they’ve been brushed aside as way too much effort for a “very limited return.” The Hinsdale Township High School District 86 school board has so far refused to address its responsibility to notify past employees of the health risks working at Hinsdale South High School from 1984 to January 2019 entailed.
Although those in the Willowbrook area can breath (literally) a sigh of relief at the departure of this deadly business enterprise, in the press release announcing their departure, Sterigenics plays the victim, stating that its products play a vital role in hospital safety (despite many alternatives to EtO which can be used for sterilization purposes with no ill effects). They also point to their record as exemplary in following all environmental guidelines and give no indication that leaving Willowbrook is due to anything other than the “unstable legislative and regulatory landscape in Illinois.” This defiant tone suggests that Sterigenics plans to continue using EtO in other places, at least until all the lawsuits its emissions have spawned are resolved. And that means anyone who cares about human health should be on guard for any Sterigenics plant near population centers.
There are other companies which are also using EtO, regardless of the risks. Medline and Vantage have hurt people in Lake County, Illinois, and Sterigenics still has over ten EtO plants operating in North America. In short, those opposed to EtO in Willowbrook will be called upon to assist others in their battles to make their air safe to breathe. Actually, the Stop Sterigenics group has already been active in exporting their activism skills to other parts of the country. Like ridding Willowbrook of this plague, it won’t be easy, but the experiences and skills developed here should transition readily to the rest of the United States. There’s no question that more effort will be required, but the Willowbrook effect should put in motion the elimination of this poison from our air. I’m not sure how long it will take, but I’m confident that EtO will join the ranks of DDT as one of those foolish inventions humans finally figured out was way too harmful to be used by anyone.
The rest of the “to-do” list related to the legacy of EtO will be harder to complete, especially now that Sterigenics and other EtO polluters are in retreat. Public awareness of the harm EtO can cause to those who have absorbed it into their systems remains a key issue that is not yet resolved. Every person who may have been harmed by EtO needs to understand what they were exposed to, what it could mean for their future health, how they can go about monitoring themselves to detect any damage as soon as possible, and what their rights are to hold Sterigenics and other polluters liable for any harm they may have caused. All those things are dependent on those impacted learning exactly what happened and having access to good information on how to proceed.
Notification processes, then, become crucial to the well-being of affected populations, but those populations come in many different groupings with varying degrees of difficulty in locating and informing. Again, using myself as an example, I never lived in the area which was polluted by Sterigenics in Willowbrook; I just happened to work at a high school close to the plant. I retired from Hinsdale South in 2012, some seven years before my health issues caused by Sterigenics came to light. I did stay in the area, however, so when the plant was closed this past January, just as I was getting my CLL diagnosis, local news helped me to put everything together to understand how I had come to have leukemia. But if I had relocated to another state upon my retirement, it’s unlikely that I would have been able to connect my illness to my time working at South by way of Sterigenics. The publicity which was so pervasive here might never have reached me had I moved away.
Of course, past employees who have moved away would be able to understand what had happened and which measures they should take if their past employers—who have now learned of EtO’s harm—would make the effort to reach out to them to provide them with the facts required to make informed decisions on healthcare, medical monitoring, and legal rights. Once those in charge know what has happened, it seems obvious that they would want to make sure that anyone who may have been impacted by EtO was notified about their exposure and where to go for information. Yet, in actual practice, the Hinsdale 86 school board rejected taking any action beyond posting a few links on its website. In other words, the board has provided a source of information but will not lift a finger to notify those victimized by the pollution in South that the information is there.
I know this because I participated in trying to get the board to begin a notification process. I emailed a board member (who also happened to be an ex-student of mine), wrote another essay which went over why this was necessary and how it might be accomplished, and appeared before the board on September 26 to ask them publicly to begin a notification process (if you’d like to hear my remarks, they begin at 0:7:05 of this video). Then, at the October 10th board meeting, a majority of the board rejected any further actions beside what had already been posted on the district web site after the superintendent requested direction on going forward with a notification process. (You can hear the five-minute discussion 1:35:15 into this video.) Those opposed had two main reasons for not notifying past employees: The notification might lead past employees to see the board as liable for the EtO pollution which could lead to suits against District 86, and the notification process would be too much effort for too little return.
To respond briefly to both those weak rationales, I suppose it is possible that somebody would see notification as grounds for a lawsuit, but the board members using this reasoning offered no evidence besides their own legal “expertise.” No one suggested tasking the lawyers the district has on retainer to look at this issue so the board would have a researched, documented legal opinion, which seems the least the board could do. Secondly, as long as we’re throwing educated guesses around about legal liability, I could point out that failure to notify those at risk would put the district at an even greater legal risk. Imagine ex-employees who discover two years from now—long after the possibility of participating in any of the on-going lawsuits has passed—that the cancer they had been treated for was actually the result of the EtO they breathed in while employed at South. Couldn’t those employees sue the district for NOT notifying them of their risks, especially given that the district clearly now knows of those risks and has received specific requests that it notify past employees of those risks? I don’t know the answer to that question, but neither do those board members who were speculating on other legal possibilities. The board should consult outside experts on these matters before accepting undocumented opinions generated on the spur of the moment.
The “very limited return for significant involvement” argument is unconscionable to me. Basically, the board members taking this position (who were four of the six at the October 10 meeting) are stating that trying to notify people who spent decades teaching the community’s children that they had been subjected to a cancer-causing substance for many years which could make them ill—as it has many of their colleagues—would be too much of a hassle, that the time of the human resources head and his staff is too valuable because they have more important things to do than working to help save past employees’ lives. To claim what has been done thus far (links listed on the district web site) is “above and beyond” what is morally required doesn’t come close to passing the ridicule test. I could list several approaches to tracking down ex-employees that would belie the argument that this would be too difficult to do, but that doesn’t matter in the least when we’re talking about the health of fellow humans. I’ve attended three funerals of my colleagues who died way too early due to cancers that have been linked to EtO; what price would those four board members state was too high to have lengthened or even saved their lives?
I can only hope that the spontaneous responses to the superintendent’s request for direction were not well thought out, but the implications of what was said is that these board members care more about the workload of the HR department than helping out sick and dying past employees. I’m sorry if my leukemia is inconvenient for you, but I sure as hell didn’t ask for it.
The least the school board can do, in my opinion, is to attempt everything it can to make sure as many past employees have all they information they need to do what’s in their best interests. It might not be something required by current laws, but morally there is no question whatsoever—past boards hired these people, taxpayers’ dollars were allocated for the care and maintenance of the building in which they worked, and it turns out that—even though nobody associated with the school district is to blame—harm was done to those employees because of that building’s condition. No, the board is not responsible for what happened because at the time, they had no knowledge of the danger in the school. But they know now.
That is not to imply that the Hinsdale 86 school board is the only organization which has a responsibility to notify those who worked in sick buildings what Sterigenics did. There are many other government-funded entities like schools, libraries, and post offices; to say nothing of dozens of private businesses within the danger zone of Sterigenics’s emissions for the past 35 years. Thus, there are thousands of people who have been impacted by having worked close to Sterigenics. How will all of them find out about their risks and rights unless their former employer reaches out to them? This is not an issue limited to the Hinsdale 86; that’s for certain. We need public policy which outlines procedures for the responsibilities organizations have for disseminating information to past/retired employees impacted by post-employment discoveries.
It shouldn’t take impacted retired employees like me to try to shame institutions, be they public or private, into doing the right thing by those who worked in their buildings. Here’s to the Hinsdale Township High School District 86 school board reconsidering its immoral decision regarding instituting a notification procedure so that those impacted by Sterigenics can get the information they need for proper health. Despite what some Hinsdale 86 board members would have you believe, it’s well worth the effort.
For more on how public schools can be improved, you can check out my e-book, excerpts of which can be seen here.
Sterigenics: Hinsdale 86 Makes a Good Start
Most of us near the Willowbrook, IL area have become aware of the health risks posed by the release of ethylene oxide (EtO) into the atmosphere by the Sterigenics facilities located in Willowbrook, and the Hinsdale Township High School District 86 (D86) school board became yet another governmental body to publicize this problem last Thursday (August 8, 2019). With the unanimous (7-0) passage of Resolution #20.02 and the introduction of a section on its web site devoted to “Sterigenics Information,” the board has taken the first steps in fulfilling its responsibility to inform the Hinsdale South High School community (where EtO contamination was high)—including residents, students, employees, and past employees—of their exposure to this carcinogen. There are, however, other important actions the board has yet to take.
I taught English at South from 1987-2012 and have already reviewed the impacts EtO has had on my family and me, so I have a keen interest in this and was at the Committee of the Whole meeting where the resolution was passed and the site was introduced. And it’s only right, first of all, for all of us to acknowledge that the D86 board’s actions are positive and should be recognized as such. On the information page, the board has provided links to recent news, a timeline of what has occurred so far, sign-ups for community members and former students/employees to receive email updates, contact information for individuals at relevant governmental agencies, online resources for information on Sterigenics and EtO, and a copy of Resolution #20.02. All of this increases awareness of the problem and provides affected individuals with necessary information to help them make informed decisions. Kudos to D86’s board for the steps it has taken so far to address this mess.
It is crucial to remember, however, that the staircase to the resolution of this problem has even more steps which still need to be scaled—this motion and accompanying web site should not be seen as the end of D86’s work on the Sterigenics problem. Of particular interest to me, in Section five of the resolution, for example, the board resolves to contact “governmental agencies and bodies the Superintendent deems appropriate to determine what efforts” have been made to contact anyone impacted by EtO exposure and “to offer the District’s cooperation and assistance in such efforts.” While that might be enough for current employees, students, and residents; merely offering assistance will not cut it for those who have left the district, especially past employees likely to be overlooked by other governmental agencies. Without direct contact efforts by D86, it is all too likely that past employees will fall through the notification process cracks. (And it should be emphasized that any notification process must include not just ex-teachers but support staff members as well since custodians, secretaries, and aides were exposed to exactly the same toxic air as everybody else.)
No governmental agency outside of D86 would be able to attempt to contact those who no longer work in the district—which agency outside of D86 would have the slightest idea where to locate these individuals years or even decades later? D86, in contrast, should have at least some human resource records of many of its past employees. I was shocked at the meeting to hear the HR head claim that D86 wouldn’t have any records earlier than 1994. Even assuming some kind of 25-year limit on district records (which is what the 1994 limit would suggest), it certainly wouldn’t be impossible for the district to consult past yearbooks from South to find those who worked there during the period when Sterigenics was operating but have been purged from D86 records (1984-94, apparently). And if the yearbooks weren’t enough, with a few phone calls, I’m willing to bet that ex-employees still in the area would be happy to volunteer to help find the contact information of those for whom addresses weren’t readily available. In this age of social media, its seems plausible that virtually anybody could eventually be found and notified.
It shouldn’t matter, though, if this project turns out to be difficult and time consuming. D86 has a moral responsibility to make a good-faith effort at the very least. And I don’t state that lightly; I feel exactly the same psychic weight myself since I was a past union leader at Hinsdale South. Like the district, I hadn’t the slightest idea that EtO was negatively impacting those who came to work every day while I worked there, but now that I know, I feel an intense obligation to make everybody who worked at South cognizant of their exposure. Not only are there potential health risks of which I am acutely aware, but the lawsuit to hold Sterigenics accountable has time limitations. Plus, the privilege to represent my colleagues in contract negotiations and grievances (I was both chief spokesperson during the 2003 and 2006 contract creation as well as South’s grievance chair for many years) comes with a clear duty to protect my people from harm. That nobody knew of the harm which was going on at the time mitigates any guilt I might feel about what happened back then, but that lack of ignorance no longer applies for either me or the D86 board. We must help everyone affected to know what took place, where they can get good information, and what legal rights they have.
Current teachers (many of whom have been working at South for decades) have the Hinsdale High School Teachers Association (HHSTA) to represent their interests to the school board; I believe contract negotiations are currently underway, and union negotiators can bargain clauses to ensure teachers are informed and protected. Past employees do not have anywhere near that kind of access to assistance, and many are scattered all over the country (at least one I know of has retired to Australia), where news of Sterigenics may be nonexistent. It comes down to others to make sure they learn what they need to know. D86 is the only entity with both the resources and the data to make that happen.
Again, I do not want to minimize the positive steps which came from the August 8th D86 board meeting with its resolution and web site sources—those were excellent actions in this new era of environmental disasters with which we are all dealing. That additional actions to make sure past employees are notified were not directly addressed does not demean what was done, but there is clearly more work to do. Given the direction exhibited this past Thursday night, I’m confident that those of us responsible for making certain everyone dosed by Sterigenics’s pollution knows of their risks and options can get this done. Thanks for what you’ve done so far, D86; now let’s hope everybody can work together to complete what has yet to be accomplished.
For more on how public schools can be improved, you can check out my e-book, excerpts of which can be seen here.
District 86’s Proposed “Curriculum Equity” Is Bad Policy
After an expensive, divisive, and at times, mean-spirited campaign, voters in Hinsdale Township High School District 86 (home to Hinsdale South and Central High Schools) voted down a proposed $166,000,000 referendum to repair, upgrade, and expand the schools this past November. The final vote was 15,440 in favor and 18,029 against (46% to 54%) with votes cast in both DuPage and Cook counties. Unfortunately, this was an unsatisfying result for both sides since everything, except for the reality of the vote count, remains contentious and unsettled.
For those in favor of the referendum, they see the situation at the high schools as dire, with facilities falling apart and programs now threatened with cuts in order to fund needed repairs. Although disappointed in the referendum’s ballot defeat, they were heartened by the relative closeness of the vote compared to the results of the district’s April 2017 initiative, which proposed $76 million in increased school funding and was crushed by a three-to-one shellacking. Many from the Yes side are now working very hard to ensure the latest ballot initiative from the District 86 school board—a $139,800,000 funding request—will be approved this April 2nd.
Opponents, led by a few local politicians and businessmen, have continued to lobby against the proposal as bloated, claiming that only $45,000,000 is actually needed to take care of needed repairs and upgrades to the two high schools. Others have suggested that teachers’ salaries and benefits are too high, that the only long-term solution to financial issues is improving work rules and cutting staff. Then there are those who believe the decline in enrollment at South coupled with increased Central attendance requires redistricting—that only after 300-400 once-scheduled-to-attend-Central students have been shifted to South can the true needs of either building be assessed. Therefore, they argue, it’s putting the cart before the horse to spend so much on changing the buildings until the board has adjusted the numbers of students in each building and filled South first. Then too, a certain percentage of the South attendance area has felt slighted when comparing how Central is treated, suspicious of economic, class, and even racial bias. Anything pertaining to District 86 that those from Central advocate smells funny to these individuals, and since Central residents have been more supportive of the previous referendum tries, they are reluctant to accept its necessity. Finally, there are those who oppose any tax increase regardless of its rationale. There is no single motivation behind the different factions within the No supporters; many opposed to the referendum find the reasoning of their different “allies” flawed. So, the Yes side is united, while the No backers separate into various sub-groups who don’t agree with each other. This poses an opportunity for the Yes side in that they can siphon off portions of the No vote by appealing to the specific issue which drives antipathy to the referendum, without having to deal with the increase in taxes, which (despite evidence of its reasonableness in this instance) triggers irrevocable opposition in some residents’ hearts.
As a retired teacher and teachers’ union activist who spent his final 25 years in education teaching English at Hinsdale South, I have both a certain level of knowledge of the district (clearly dated, however, as I retired in 2012) and no concrete stake in how this all turns out (I do not live within District 86’s boundaries). It would probably surprise no one that when it comes to District 86’s current referendum, this retired teacher thinks it would be best for voters to approve the referendum: Greater funding for education is rarely a bad thing in my opinion, and there are compelling reasons to support this tax increase. My purpose here has nothing to do with the outcome of this vote, however, but the unintended negative consequences which the political jockeying for votes is leading to. At least one such consequence could actually hurt the education of District 86 students.
A concern in the district over the years which never seems to go away is the perceived disparity in each individual school’s quality. Central is regarded as superior, one of the top high schools in the country; South is seen as very good, but a step or two down the rung in its students’ educational preparation. (I reject this characterization and have made that clear in many previous essays on this subject—South is an amazing school, and I’m not saying that just because of its astute hiring choices in the past.) As pointed out above, one of the criticisms which has been leveled by those opposing the referendum is that South residents have been getting shortchanged over the years and will again be neglected once any new money from this proposed referendum is allocated. One bone of contention has been differences in various courses offered at each school: Central has typically had more high-level classes (Advanced Placement courses, for example, where students are prepared for end-of-year tests which can qualify them for college credit) than South has, which some claim affords Central students better educational opportunities. Even the order in which science courses are taught—freshmen take biology, then chemistry, and finally physics at Central contrasted with the geophysics, chemistry, biology sequence at South—has come under scrutiny as evidence that Central is better than South. Thus, despite clearly articulated explanations for this as well as other differences and the high-quality education both schools have provided over the years, the charges of an inferior education being offered at South have entered into referendum politics as a reason not to support its passage.
So now, the school board and its administrators—referendum backers, in case you weren’t sure–are moving aggressively to allay these course inequity concerns. To that end, at its January 7th Committee of the Whole meeting, the board established the following:
“Under the guidance of the Board of Education, the following goals have been established as necessary to achieve common curriculum, instruction and assessments in Hinsdale Township High School District 86:
- Common Courses: Developing and implementing a common set of courses that will be taught in both schools.
- Common Textbooks: Implement common textbooks that will be used in both schools.
- Common Fees: Creating a common set of course fees that will meet the needs of the courses in both schools.
- Common Curriculum: Creating a common curriculum for each course in both schools.
- Common Final Exams: Creating a comprehensive common final exam for each course.
- Common Anchor Assessments: Creating common anchor assessments for each course.”
This so-called “curriculum equity” will be phased in over the next three years, characterized by District 86 Superintendent Bruce Law as, “the biggest curriculum change in the history of District 86, without question.” (Soon to be “ex-District 86 employee Law” as he has accepted a position in Deerfield/Highland Park High School District #113 to be its superintendent, effective July 1.) To those unfamiliar with how schools and teachers actually work, these might seem like reasonable, laudatory goals: Equal education for everyone—who could be opposed to that? However, despite seemingly good intentions, all of these objectives would harm the education of District 86 students, except for common courses to be offered at both schools (maybe) and for fees to be the same. At the very least, pursuing Goals 2, 4, 5, and 6 will waste significant amounts of teaching time and taxpayer money, both of which could be put to much better use.
In case you didn’t know, a fundamental tenet of teaching and education is that each and every student, classroom, teacher, and school is unique and requires individualized methods and approaches. If this is true, as I fervently believe it is, trying to standardize two separate and different schools is a fool’s errand doomed to failure. First and foremost, this kind of standardization ignores that we all bring different skill sets and backgrounds to everything we do. Parents should be the first to recognize this since they can raise two children in what they think are identical ways only to see them turn out completely differently. One loves to read, while the other has little interest in anything printed but readily absorbs anything he hears; the oldest thrives on challenges, while the youngest wilts at the first sign of difficulty; the daughter will seek out any social situation she can, while the son needs significant amounts of isolation to function well. That every situation and human being is one-of-a-kind is hardly a startling revelation, but it appears that District 86 leaders are ignoring this basic truth in the hopes of placating those who show little understanding of how educational institutions work and would vote No if Central has one more AP section than South.
Each of the thirty-three years I taught, I had to make constant adjustments in what would happen every day in my classes based on the needs and abilities of my students. Class activities, materials, and assessments needed regular revisions since one group was extremely lively and quick to pick things up while another shrank from taking any intellectual risks and thrived on seat work. You simply cannot assume that any class will respond in the same way or have the same skills as another, during the same school year, much less from year to year or in different schools. Even individual classes will need approach changes during the course of the year; emotional and physical development peak during adolescence and you would be an idiot to assume that the most effective way to interact with a particular sophomore at the beginning of the school year wouldn’t need revision by May as the school year progressed.
Teachers likewise cannot be squeezed into the same mold and be expected to run their classrooms in the identical ways. One might use class discussions most effectively while right next door, a different teacher will get better results with small-group work, and a third has success with students writing individual answers down to be shared in class presentations. And yes, those teachers could all be teaching the same scientific concept, piece of literature, or historical era with similarly good results. Standardizing teaching has never succeeded and never will—it contradicts fundamental human nature and should not be formalized as a district-wide goal.
Thus, forcing teachers to use identical materials, texts, assignments, and assessments has no chance of coming close to successful implementation. But the school board has trumpeted “Curriculum Equity” as crucial to the future of the district, and it appears that everyone else in leadership roles has signed on. But you can be sure there is a sizable portion of the two teaching staffs who view this initiative with deep skepticism if not outright hostility. Resistance will be significant and efforts to chase this folly will be countered with deception and circumvention from many teachers. It will require significant administrative pressure to get independent, intelligent, experienced teachers (which describes the South and Central staffs) to conform to new standards and materials selected by others and forced on them. Even if teachers “accept” the new texts, for example, you can be sure that many of them will rarely use them; and why would parents want them to when they have used different, superior materials which have been proven effective over the course of years? I’ve witnessed this countless times during my teaching career. You have no idea what “passive/aggressive behavior” means if you have never sat in a department meeting where an administrator is explaining some new top-down initiative that has little support from the rank and file—many teachers will nod and smile as the unwanted procedure or material is presented and raise no objections, despite having absolutely no intention of even giving it a try, much less devoting the time and effort needed for total implementation. And why on Earth would anyone want teachers to abandon things which have been shown to work because of some administrative edict, especially something designed to garner votes in a referendum rather than being based on student need or the best educational practices for that teacher’s situation?
There could even be teachers filing grievances through their union over this once administrators start to crack down on anyone who resists changing successful programs and practices used with excellent results for many years. The Illinois collective bargaining law requires that school districts negotiate “wages, hours, and other conditions of employment.” “Other conditions of employment” is the key here since that catchall category could encompass school boards requiring specific texts. Once a teacher is disciplined for failure to use a designated text book or using something other than a mandated test, that text or test would thus become something teachers had to do: a condition of employment. If a principal or superintendent threatens a teacher with job-action as the result of the teacher’s refusal to use a certain exam, a teacher should comply with the request (insubordination is not acceptable when filing a grievance), but could then insist the union (Hinsdale High School Teachers Association—HHSTA—in this case) file a “demand to bargain” on that issue as required by law. Should the district stand firm that using a certain exam is, in fact, a condition of employment—that a teacher will be disciplined and possibly fired if he doesn’t use them—then the district could be forced to re-open contract negotiations in order to bargain this new clause into the teachers’ contract. How do I know this? Well, a few years ago, a certain English teacher at Hinsdale South (who also happened to be South’s HHSTA Grievance Chair) objected to being forced to use the school’s on-line grading program—which didn’t allow him to maintain a grading system he’d been using for twenty years and which he had proof was successful— and informed his bosses that he would be filing a demand to bargain grade program requirements for teachers. A brief legal consultation or two later, the administrators recognized the reality of the law and backed off. So after a couple of weeks of complying with my boss’s order that I use the program, I never used it again, except to enter grades at the ends of quarters (we still had quarters way back when).
So, in addition to rampant passive resistance from teachers who will seemingly acquiesce to the new common curriculum but quietly do exactly what they did before, you will also have a few who go through the motions of accepting the top-down edicts but insist on time-consuming negotiations over the terms of how this new policy works.
We also should not forget the fundamental flaw in this curricular approach—the population of each school is different from the other. There are many ways to parse those differences, but there are really only two which have been shown over and over again to have a significant impact on how well students achieve in school: Parental level of education and socio-economic status both relate to student success in school, and Central’s parents have always been more educated and wealthier overall than South’s. With 6% low income students at Central compared to South’s 31%, it makes little sense to demand the same curriculum for both schools. From numbers of minority students to those who need after-school jobs to those with a single parent to those with two-income households, the school communities are different. That the curriculum offerings reflect those differences is the reality of public schools. Yet, the educational heights South students can reach compare favorably with any student body in the country: District 86 has done an outstanding job in providing educational opportunities to each and every student fortunate enough to attend either school. Unfortunately, the district leadership has never been particularly adept at publicizing this fact—disparities in test scores and numbers of advanced classes have been misinterpreted as signs of inferiority at South, rather than different starting points for some students, many of whom are NOT products of area elementary schools
And how successful can a program be when it has to be forced on teachers? State mandates have proven over the years that outside pressures do little to enhance educational practices. As part of the No Child Left Behind law of the Bush administration, schools were required to come up with some kind of reward system for students. Hinsdale South formed a committee, led by an assistant principal, which came up with a stamp system: Students caught being “good” would receive a Hornet stamp in their school-issued planners. (Every teacher was supplied with a Hornet stamper and an ink pad.) Once they had accumulated enough stamps, students would qualify for some privileges or prizes. Yep, they actually had drawings in the school where students could win an i-Pod, parking space for a week, or a TV. Thankfully, this practice died quickly, but not before countless hours of planning and implementation—to say nothing of the taxpayer money for stamps, prizes, and curriculum work—had been wasted. Yet every teacher who sat through the first-day institute where this new process was introduced could have told you—at that very moment—this program had no chance of anything but ridicule and disappearance into the mythology of really bad, expensive ideas.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that more communication between the two schools about what is being taught isn’t a good thing. While I worked at South, I regularly criticized the district for its lack of inter-school activities and how little time teachers from the two schools ever spent with each other: The last three years I worked in District 86 (2009-12), the only times the English Departments of the two buildings ever met on school time was once a year for half an institute day. And for all three of those years, a guest speaker was brought in so that the only interaction between South and Central teachers occurred in the fifteen minutes before the speaker began and the ten minutes when everyone was leaving. Don’t misconstrue my objections to the “identical” goals of the school board as an objection to more communication between District 86 teachers. One of the few positive trends in public education over the past few years has been a recognition that teachers need more time to talk to one another, to interact without students present, to share their successes and concerns in order to learn from each other. THAT should be the goal of the board of education, not this misguided attempt to get principals and department chairs to homogenize the two schools. Instead of outside influences, experts, and expensive evaluation packages, just letting the freshmen English teachers at the two schools spend some time together would do wonders for helping both schools coordinate objectives, share materials, and gain insights into making each teacher’s classroom better.
Nor am I opposed to common goals for both schools. While standardization is one of the worst words in public education today, standards are crucial. Nothing is more important than determining what a South or Central graduate should be capable of doing after four years, what that diploma means. But those goals—being able to write effectively depending on audience, for example—are subjective in nature and can’t be easily measured. Everybody would agree that a high school graduate should be a critical thinker, but critical thinking today faces challenges unheard of thirty years ago—the Internet, 24-hour news reporting, and thousands of new media choices have complicated and altered the challenges of teaching clear thinking. From attitudes toward sexual orientation to climate change debates, it’s harder for students to find truth; but the responsibility of helping them figure it out continues to fall largely on teachers. Addressing the best ways to tackle those issues only intensifies the need for teacher-to-teacher communication on a regular basis and illustrates how silly it is to have administrators and school board members mandate a one-size-fits-all approach. Teachers will still need to make individual choices based on specific classroom situations, but having other resources to lean on is vital to figuring all this out.
The last thing those teachers need, however, is some bloated, bureaucratic, slow-moving entity above them issuing edicts on the only way to deal with the complexities of our society and the intricacies of educating young people; e.g. telling them what curriculum, textbook, and test they have to use. Yet, that’s exactly what District 86 is now promoting as somehow a step forward for equity. Anyone with experience in working within an organization can tell you how pointless it is for isolated leaders—most of whom don’t even teach classes—to claim omniscience when it comes to the daily functions of those down the line. Trying to standardize something as complicated as a high school course with some 25 unique teenagers enrolled makes absolutely no sense. To placate a few individuals who might change their votes in order to gain additional funding, the school board is abdicating its responsibility to provide the best education for the students of District 86. While I’m pretty sure that teachers will undermine this foolish plan and most of the damage this move would inflict on the schools will be mitigated, it’s a pretty sad state of affairs when teachers have to hide what they’re doing in order to serve their students’ best interests. That’s precisely the scenario this new initiative will lead to.
Sadly, it may be too late for this bad decision to be reversed. Already heralded in the media with no negative reaction from anyone that I have heard, the curriculum equity movement seems destined to be official District 86 policy as administrators force teachers to modify their courses to fit the demands of those who know virtually nothing about how those courses currently work. Given the HHSTA’s support of the referendum—significant funds from the HHSTA’s state organization (the Illinois Education Association) were used to campaign for the defeated November proposal—there might be little vocalized opposition to this misguided plan. But I can guarantee you that a significant number of District 86 teachers will resist. Whether this takes the form of passively ignoring stupidity from above or aggressively asserting rights to negotiate working conditions as provided under the law, the board’s actions will only result in more wasted time and money. And that’s pretty ironic in a district claiming to be unable to fund football or band next year. “Curriculum equity” is not a valid concept in evaluating whether or not District 86’s proposed referendum should be approved, much less lauded as a sound educational practice. Here’s hoping common sense will eventually rule the day, and the board will back away from forcing changes which will only hurt the schools in a futile attempt to convince the community that both schools are the same.
If you’d like to read more on District 86, check out this section of my blog. For more on teaching and education in general, my e-book is also available.
Hinsdale Township High School District 86: New Year, Same Problem
As the 2017-18 school year begins, one district continues to deal with an old problem. If you’re at all familiar with the attendance-balancing conundrum faced by Hinsdale Township High School District 86, home to Hinsdale South and Hinsdale Central High Schools, the news that the school board is planning to hire a public opinion research firm to figure out what the community believes should be done to solve the matter might have led you to some significant eye rolling. Since I taught English for twenty-five years at South, as well as having been active in the Hinsdale High School Teachers Association (HHSTA) for most of that time, I could only shake my head at the prospect of an outside agency being hired ($52,000 is the proposed budget) to gauge (gouge?) public sentiment while soliciting input on the solutions most favored by the community. Yet, I do understand the difficulty the board faces, which has led to this course of action.
In case you don’t know about all the drama in District 86 over attendance: For the past several years, Central’s student population has been rapidly growing while South’s is shrinking. On the most recent Illinois Report Card, Central had 1281 more students than South (2834 vs. 1553). More problematic is that Central’s numbers are above what district administrators feel the building can handle, while South is roughly 400 below its capacity. “Not much of a problem,” you might think, since it seems obvious that students could be moved from one high school to the other. And even if the district chose not to transfer any students who had already begun attending Central, you might conclude it would make sense to shift some incoming freshmen from Central to South each year, which would gradually even out both schools’ totals. But you would be very naive to underestimate how challenging either of those actions would really be.
You see, parents in the Central attendance adamantly do NOT want their children to go to South. This has been proven repeatedly whenever the board has even hinted at moving students. Last year, when the board broached the topic of changing the district’s “buffer” zone (an area in the middle of the district where parents can pick which of the two high schools their children attend—almost all choose Central) so that those students would now have to attend South, hundreds of parents showed up, with the overwhelming majority protesting the possibility of not being able to send their kids to Central. Soon thereafter, the board tabled even forming a committee to look at attendance issues, preferring to bury the matter in the overall strategic plan for the district. (For me, one particularly surreal moment occurred at that meeting when a board member apologized to Central parents for “stressing” them by considering shifting their kids to South.) Then, this past spring, the board attempted to pass a referendum which would have funded a Central building expansion to accommodate the growing Red Devil masses, effectively increasing the imbalance with an ever-growing Central campus. But district voters soundly rejected the proposal by a three-to-one margin.
If you’d like to read a more detailed account of all this (flavored liberally, of course, with my own insights), you could check out my other essays on this topic, starting chronologically with this one from May 2016, followed by another one in September that same year, topped off by this analysis after the referendum was voted down in April, 2017. While I heartily recommend this journey down memory lane in its entirety (and there are others, if you’re game), the bottom line of all this doesn’t offer any solutions which won’t anger a hearty portion of one section of the district or the other. Current Central parents will be livid if they can no longer send their kids to Central, and South folks will not be happy to see their taxes increased to add on to Central when there is more than adequate space already available in South. There really aren’t many solutions to this problem outside of these two, which would seem to lead to disgruntled residents no matter which is selected.
But you would misjudge human creativity if you felt those two options couldn’t be finessed to make them seem more palatable, or at least hidden—it’s just that those are the only two that follow the letter of the law and spend tax dollars most reasonably. Another couple of ideas floated over the years are even more radical or risk being horribly offensive and morally questionable. First, some have suggested merging the two schools, which would result in one campus inhabited by freshmen and sophomores, with the other populated by juniors and seniors. This new Hinsdale Township High School would definitely solve all the balancing problems (even though it would create others—most notably to some, the elimination of half of the district’s varsity sports programs), and there could be little question that this would offer all District 86 students equal academic opportunities. One high school instead of two would be such a huge change for everyone, though, that it is hard to see it getting any serious consideration, or being endorsed by many on the proposed public opinion surveys.
The other, shadier idea which has been suggested would be creating an elite “school within a school” at South which would house a small, advanced group of students. I’ve disliked this idea from the start as a somewhat cynical publicity stunt to convince Central people it was safe to journey into the wilderness they believe South to be, where their sheltered children could pursue their more advanced studies, isolated from the unwashed masses that populate the rest of the building. The official concept District 86 has considered for this is an International Baccalaureate program, which I have nothing against and appears to be a solid, worthwhile concept. The catch, however, is that the Advanced Placement classes already in place serve essentially the same purpose, and no one is suggesting the elimination of any A.P. classes in District 86. Instead, this idea is a misleading way to trick parents into thinking the school-within-a-school approach would be much better than the programs already in place, an extremely shaky premise given the excellent education currently being provided at both schools. What the I.B. proposal really facilitates is a way to segregate any Central students who might enroll in it from the general population at South. No one will ever admit that, and I’m sure this hidden bias would be denied vehemently by all District 86 board members and administrators; but it is a bit odd that during my twenty-five years teaching high-level classes at South, nobody ever broached this idea or even hinted our honors programs were lacking. In my opinion, the I.B. idea has surfaced as a means to balance attendance, not as something for which there is a curricular need. That it takes several years and significant retooling to be certified as an I.B. school, however, makes this approach seem unlikely to address a problem which needs decisive action sooner rather than later.
The one tried-and-true method for solving overcrowding is for the school board to use accumulated tax money combined with issuing new bonds in order to add on to Central without subjecting these new expenditures to the referendum process. You might be shocked that the board would be able to circumvent the normal process for new building projects (that is, seeking permission from its electorate before committing millions of tax dollars to expansion; i.e., a referendum), but this has been done repeatedly over the years. Any and all new building in District 86 since South was constructed in the 1960s was funded this way—and that would include field houses, science lab wings, air conditioning, and annexes, to name a few, totaling over $75 million (conservatively). That the board sought referendum approval in the spring of 2016 before proceeding with additions is actually an outlier when compared to typical District 86 operating practices: No property tax increases for new construction have been approved through referendums in over fifty years, yet many significant building projects have been completed during that time.
So it is still possible that Central could be expanded over the decisive margin of objections evidenced through the recent referendum of District 86’s electorate. To its credit, however, school board members are trying to involve the community in the ultimate decision, hence the proposed hiring of a public relations firm to assess community opinions. Yes, it would seem pretty obvious what community opinion is at this point given the crushing defeat of the referendum proposal this past spring, but that defeat did not resolve the overcrowding at Central, which is only getting worse.
And it is possible, maybe, that the survey could provide helpful information on the key question that has impeded the most fiscally responsible solution to this problem: Why are Central area residents so opposed to redistricting attendance boundaries for better balance, which would mean some students currently slated to attend Central would be moved to South?
Clearly, the answer to that pivotal question is not simple, direct, or even totally understood at a conscious level by many opposed to the change. Without a doubt, the most significant and readily accessed reasons have to do with the quality education Central has provided over the years. Consistently rated as one of the best high schools in America, Hinsdale Central has a proud tradition of academic and extra-curricular excellence as evidenced by the success its students have in elite colleges, their professional lives after graduation, and how often Central racks up Illinois High School Association (IHSA) sports championships. Most people resist change, especially when that which is to be changed is regarded as exemplary. Many residents of the Central attendance area selected their homes and paid a premium price (Oakbrook, Hinsdale, and Clarendon Hills are NOT cheap places to buy real estate) particularly because it meant their children would be able to go to Central. To have that switched to South will not be received well, regardless of South’s own excellence.
But that’s where things start to go wrong, to get twisted, to get an ugly sheen which contains hints of racism, class snobbery, and economic bigotry. As someone who taught for twenty-five years at South, I know how good it is, and the shrill resistance of Central residents to sending their children there often seems hurtful both to the teachers and students who go to South every day. I’ve been over my opinion of South’s high quality several times (see the previously referenced blog entries for more on that), but the rumors and myths many Central people accept as truth about South destroys anyone’s ability to convince them of how good the school is, and most significantly to believe the opportunities afforded South students are in every way equal to those at Central. Unfortunately, it will come as no surprise to anyone when the public opinion firm verifies what everyone already knows—South is perceived within the Central attendance area as more dangerous, less academically rigorous, and generally a huge step down from Central in preparing kids for college and providing them with an education anywhere near as good as the one Central provides. That the top students at South go just as far as Central’s elite—although fewer in number—is disregarded; some may even believe those kids achieve despite going to South, not because of it. Unless this public opinion firm can somehow alter those negative perceptions many Central residents have about South, nothing but confirmation of the status quo will come from the $52,000 the board is planning to spend.
Why South has such a bad reputation on the Central side of town and how that can be changed is a discussion nobody wants to have, but it’s at the heart of any solution to District 86’s attendance issues. To some, the whole time-consuming exercise (to say nothing of the cost) of public opinion surveys does little but delay needed resolutions to the issue. And others would argue that more time is all the board is really seeking by postponing a direct confrontation on this controversy, now that the referendum solution has failed. As the last board did a year ago when it tabled any discussions of what to do; in hiring a public opinion company, the current board could be accused of kicking the controversy down the road another year or so. And as has happened each time the board has avoided hard decisions, the problem hasn’t gone away, emerging later in an even more acute state.
While we can empathize with the difficult situation in which District 86 school board members find themselves, it is hard to believe that an outside public opinion research firm will be able to discover a magic solution which will make everyone happy. Regardless, something concrete has to be done. In an extensive demographic report created in 2015, attendance estimates were made based on “enrollment projections assuming turnover of existing housing units and family in-migration which are A. less than anticipated; B. as anticipated; or C. greater than anticipated through 2029-2030.” And under all three scenarios, significantly more students are projected for Central until at least 2030. Even more ominous is that last year’s attendance at both schools was closer to the high projection (C) with Central actually 37 students beyond that largest projection (2797 projected vs 2834 actual). Eventually, the school board will have to decide if it is going to change attendance zones and send students who originally were slated to attend Central to South (and anger the parents of those students) or spend millions more than is necessary through increased taxes/bonds so that Central can be enlarged despite all the space available at South (and anger everyone else).
This day of reckoning can only be put off for so long. Not only are Central students suffering with overly crammed facilities and decreasing course offerings, but South’s students face issues too. Numerous faculty members have been transferred to Central, which leads to an unsettled atmosphere and fewer services (like the English Department’s Writing Lab) offered. It’s hard not to see actions like hiring a public opinion research firm as anything more than delaying tactics which will make necessary solutions even more unpalatable to everyone later.
For more on the challenges facing public education and common sense ideas to meet them, check out my e-book, Snowflake Schools, which can be previewed here.
Hinsdale 86 Voters Pick the Hard Way
Several weeks ago, a referendum was put before the residents of Hinsdale High School Township District 86 (which is composed of Hinsdale South and Central High Schools). The referendum outlined plans to raise property taxes by $76,000,000 in order to upgrade aquatic areas at both schools and to add more classrooms at Hinsdale Central to accommodate its increasing enrollment. The communities of District 86 (Darien, Hinsdale, Willowbrook, Oakbrook, Burr Ridge, and Clarendon Hills) voted down the tax increase by three to one—75.1% against and 24.85% in favor in DuPage County. This will leave the District 86 school board (four of whom were elected as new members on the same ballot with the ill-fated referendum) with significant challenges immediately as this board takes charge.
My knowledge of this excellent school district comes from its astute hiring practices: I taught English in Hinsdale South for twenty-five years, and became familiar with the district’s workings (at least somewhat) in my roles for the Hinsdale High School Teachers Association (HHSTA—the union which represents all District 86 teachers): president, contract negotiator, and grievance chair at different times for much of my career. So I followed with interest this particular referendum since it was the first one attempted in District 86 since the 1960s. There has also been much controversy about the two high schools and how they are perceived in their communities through the years, most recently over the expansion of District 86’s “buffer zone,” an area in the district where some residents can select either high school for their children to attend (almost all currently in the zone have selected Central). That, coupled with a declining enrollment at South while Central’s attendance sky-rocketed, led to the referendum’s being not just about adding on to Central, but instead a forum on the two high schools. Why, many asked, should homeowners vote to increase their property taxes so that Central can add classrooms when there is significant space available right in the district, just a couple of miles away at Hinsdale South? To some, though, the answer was obvious—addition was necessary, so no one currently eligible to attend Central would have to go to South.
I’ve written about this issue several times. You can find the essays (along with links to various news stories which motivated them) on my blog, with this one and this being two which ought to give you the highlights. I’ve never tried to hide my bias in favor of Hinsdale South as an excellent high school and that the opportunities provided by its amazing staff (I can say that now since I’ve retired) compare favorably to every high school in the country, including and (what school board members and administrators need to keep reminding everyone) especially Hinsdale Central.
And now that distinction needs more emphasis than ever: For the past decade or so, as the enrollment has gone up at Central, several additions and upgrades have been made to the facilities there. From library remodeling to new science labs to air conditioning, tens of millions have been spent to improve the physical plant at Central. And yes, most of those upgrades were also made at South as well. But in the last few years, South’s enrollment has declined from over 2000 students at its peak to less than 1600 on its most recent 2016 school report card. With Central still growing (not to mention the expansion of the aforementioned “buffer zone” last year), this meant any new building was only going to take place at Central, unless the board shifted attendance areas for the two schools in order to send more students to South.
The discussion of the transfer/redistricting solution to Central’s overcrowding lasted about two board meetings last year, as parents from the Central attendance areas turned out in droves to protest the possibility. That board (of whom three members are still on the current board) quickly backed away from the idea, pledging not to broach the subject again when determining whether or not to seek a referendum and even apologizing to parents for “stressing” them with speculation about their children being made to attend South. That led to the proposal for a $76 million tax increase, and we know how that turned out.
So now the whole South/Central issue comes into play once more. The overcrowding at Central is not going to go away; facilities are limited, and there is only so much room available (especially in specialized areas like science labs). Increasing class sizes is never an appealing solution (nor should it be), and the growth in Central with South shrinking has already led to the reallocation of the most valuable resource any school district has: its teachers. Many have been transferred from South to Central, which leads to some uncertainty and tension, especially when department chairs have to agree on which teachers should be moved and younger teachers need stability in order to polish their craft. Any involuntary transfer will create some negativity; the goal should be to minimize that kind of disruption of the staff.
But that leads right back to the much more unpopular and difficult disruption of students who were supposed to go to Central being told they have to attend South. And with the referendum’s being soundly defeated, there aren’t many alternatives. Temporary classrooms could be used at Central as a stopgap, depending on how long the enrollment bulge lasts, but that is hardly a palatable solution, especially in one of the more prestigious high schools in the country. Other than that or a population shift to South, the board could try for another referendum or use its excellent credit rating to issue some bonds which could finance Central’s expansion.
That last option is basically how past additions and building modifications have been funded, so it would hardly be surprising should the board take that direction. But as I’ve also previously pointed out, the intent of property tax laws is for residents to have a say in approving funds for building projects, among other things. A referendum is the more letter-of-the-law method to get necessary money for projects, but the key point opponents of the recently defeated District 86 proposal made was that much of this building wasn’t necessary, that needed classroom space was already in place. With that kind of controversy at the heart of this spending proposal, then, a referendum is by far the best method to determine the will of the people. And that just happened, without much doubt as to what community members feel about increasing taxes. So, guess what—we’re right back where we started with one question each before both sides in this issue. For the No Transfer people: How will the district provide adequate facilities for so many students without changing any attendance boundaries or increasing property taxes? For the “Fill South First” advocates: Why is attending South so unpalatable for parents in the Central attendance area?
I no longer work in District 86, and I only lived in district for a few years a long time ago (a rental unit, of course. I could definitely digress on the irony of teachers’ being entrusted with the education of children in whose neighborhoods they can’t afford to live), so I will refrain from analyzing or judging the reasons so many strongly oppose redistricting so that more students wind up at South. I’m sure some of those reasons are based solely on a positive perception of Central, of familiarity and experience. But as someone who worked at South and dealt with many from Central-land, I do believe there is a strong streak of irrational horror at the idea of having to slum it by going to South. No one in any of the towns which feed into Central would ever accept that racism, class-snobbery, or “white trash” stereotyping has anything to do with not wanting to attend South; yet that vibe is impossible to avoid if you listen to some of the rhetoric when South is discussed.
And that’s what will have to be confronted by the new board. Regardless of what happens with the overcrowding at Central, the divided district needs to move toward more unity, toward more respect for each school, and toward a celebration of the equity of opportunity provided for all students in District 86. And there is some positive news to report in that direction. #WeAreHinsdaleSouth is a new organization created by parents of Hinsdale South students (both past and present) which has formed to promote South since “South’s reputation took some unwarranted hits in the past few years, including from a member of the school board,” according to one member of the group. #WeAreHinsdaleSouth has plans to make sure that everyone in the District 86 attendance area is aware of that which makes South such a good school, publicizing accomplishments, opportunities, events, and people which show the school in its best light. You can read more about them here, as well as finding out about attending their next meeting on Monday, May 8.
I certainly wish this group well and hope they finally help South to be better recognized for the stellar school it is. I also hope that #WeAreHinsdaleSouth is in this for the long haul—it will not be an easy task to enhance South’s image on the Central side of town; patience, creativity, and diligence need to be the key strategies since reputations are quick to form but hard to change. And regardless of #WeAreHinsdaleSouth’s efforts, the school board must accept the challenge of fostering a more unified approach to the district. Although wanting to change the South vs. Central dynamic for the better might not have been the key reason voters rejected District 86’s proposed referendum, a potentially beneficial unintended consequence of that vote could lead to a stronger, less divided community. This is definitely not the easiest path, but it is the right direction for the district and something everyone should be rooting for.
To find out more about #WeAreHinsdaleSouth, go to their Facebook page. For more on how school districts can improve, check out my eBook, Snowflake Schools.
Referendums Should Be for Teachers, Too
On April 4, 2017, voters will be electing local governmental leaders—village officials, school board members, and the like. Additionally, several communities will have to vote on referendums advanced by their school districts seeking additional funding. Two of those involve districts in which I have an interest: Hinsdale Township High School District 86 (where I worked for twenty-five years), which is seeking $76,000,000 for additional classrooms and swimming pool remodeling; and Center Cass School District 66 (which is the elementary district my two daughters attended), which needs over $12,000,000 for various repairs and safety updates. (You can find the official referendums here–just click “Propositions.) Yet, one aspect of funding a school district for which you will not see any new monetary requests is the single most important factor in any school’s success—its teachers.
Just to be clear with my background, I taught English for thirty-three years, retiring in 2012 after working in both a junior and senior high school as well as being active in my school districts’ unions (President, negotiator, and grievance chair). Thus, I have an extreme bias in favor of teachers and the role they play in public education: No matter what kinds of reforms, programs, or experts you can cite; nothing will impact a school more than the quality of its teachers. And despite myths to the contrary, our public schools are not rife with incompetent teachers hiding behind unions or school codes in order to maintain their “cushy” positions. Of course there are some bad teachers out there, but they are a minuscule number of the millions of dedicated public educators. Most teachers work extremely hard to make a difference in the lives of our children.
But it has become more and more standard for school districts to downplay any and all expenses associated with maintaining their staff. I receive several Google news alerts for a variety of public education issues which provide me with over thirty news stories from around the country every day. But in the last five years, I have yet to see an article covering a school district, national leader, school board member, or any organization (other than those quoting teachers’ unions during contract negotiations) who will argue that school funding should be increased in order to attract and retain the best possible teachers. The referendums shown above make absolutely no mention of needing more money for teachers—whether it be to lower class size or to gain a competitive edge when hiring the best teaching candidates—and I can’t remember hearing those in charge of our schools ever advocate for higher teacher salaries.
Instead, it’s become a standard procedure for many administrators and school board members to claim that teachers cost too much, that things like steps on a salary schedule are no longer “sustainable,” or that ”greedy” teachers are bleeding taxpayers dry. I do understand that resources are not infinite—How many times during contract negotiations did I hear that there were “only so many slices of financial pie”!—but that line of reasoning won’t come up when discussing more funds for school expansion or repair, even when the need for more classrooms isn’t always dire, as is the case in Hinsdale 86 where shifting some students from one school to another is a money-saving option which the district has rejected. Yet, the attacks about “easy” work schedules and “Cadillac” insurance programs arose every time I fought to improve the working conditions for teachers I knew were doing an amazing job.
The most galling argument I ever heard was during one negotiations when, frustrated by the district’s claims of poverty and refusal to agree to a reasonable salary increase, I suggested that if money were so tight, perhaps the board should seek more funding for our salaries. The response was that requesting a referendum for salaries would be like “re-financing a mortgage to buy groceries.” Since teachers are mere transitory expenses, the reasoning went, one should never “waste” a difficult process like promoting unpopular tax increases on raises for them. Needless to say, my reply (that having the necessary money to eat was significantly more important than saving a percent or two on a mortgage interest rate, thus rendering their analogy idiotic) didn’t go over well.
The most essential element by a wide margin in improving and/or maintaining the quality of public education is who is in front of the classroom. No matter what study you look at or how many factors are cited as important, all will have quality teaching near the top of the list of crucial characteristics. Everyone knows this, but it seems we refuse to recognize the relationship between good salaries and good teachers, unlike other professions. As all you baseball fans know, the White Sox recently traded one of the best pitchers in baseball, Chris Sale, and a key aspect of his value in the trade was everyone agreeing on how “reasonable” his contract was at only $38,000,000 for the next three years. Yet, when it comes to the people who are responsible for teaching and looking out for our children every day, we become enraged when they earn over $100,000 a year (which would require teaching for 380 years to earn what Mr. Sale—who is a bargain by baseball standards—will earn in three years). And I believe Chris is worth every penny; I just also happen to believe that teachers deserve a good wage too.
So as we vote this Tuesday on the referendums which are being pursued, we should keep in mind the unspoken reality that any additional money a school system receives at least indirectly might strengthen a district’s faculty. Hinsdale 86 is an excellent example of how a failure to use referendums can create a needless money crunch when it comes to maintaining a quality staff. My old district hasn’t passed a referendum since the 1960s, yet has spent tens of millions of dollars on new building: The district has added many classrooms, field houses, and science labs as well as extensive remodeling projects over the years. The money for all this was obtained through issuing bonds and spending surplus property tax revenues. This time, at least, it is going through the appropriate channel of soliciting taxpayer approval before embarking on significant building sprees. Unfortunately, though, the need for additional classrooms is less clear since much room exists in one of the two schools. (You can read more about this issue here, here, and here.) I would vote for this referendum, were I eligible to vote in Hinsdale Township, but it’s hardly a black/white choice. My rationale would be to support the superior teachers there, not the questionable building. The district will have major problems if this referendum fails, but the issues which failure would raise are important and should be addressed sooner or later. Sadly, though, those most likely to feel the pinch for a rejection financially would be the teachers, come the time for a new contract. (You can find an editorial which rejects this referendum as foolish here in the Chicago Tribune.)
In Center Cass 66, I would strongly encourage fellow residents to vote “Yes” on this tax increase (which I will also pay). Elementary teachers unfairly earn significantly less than their secondary counterparts, and the relatively small tax increase for repairs should allow Center Cass to compensate teachers more equitably. Of course, the teachers in the district will have to fight for their fair share, but assuming the referendum is approved, at least they won’t be competing as much with facilities expenses. (It was also a nice touch that over Spring Break, repairs to one of the schools’ roofs ( at Prairieview Elementary), have been on display for anyone driving by on Plainfield Road, right before the voting.)
One day, perhaps, we will see a school board courageous and far-sighted enough to push a referendum because teachers are cherished and valued more highly than the thrill of construction. There should be no question as to what is the most important resource in any school district, but we have a long way to go to acknowledge that teachers matter most and should be compensated accordingly. Approving referendums (even as they are currently constructed) is at least one small, indirect way to show some support for teachers.
For more outlier views on what goes on in the world of public education and ways we can strengthen this institution, check out my e-book, Snowflake Schools.
Hinsdale 86 Attendance Controversy Continues
When we last left Hinsdale Township High School District 86, home to Hinsdale South and Central High Schools, the school board had voted (4-3, barely) to scrap plans for a referendum this November to seek many millions in new tax revenues (estimates ranged from the mid-70s to the low 90s, but it varied from meeting to meeting and from board member to board member). At the time, we suggested that this would only lead to more unrest—the decision to cancel the referendum vote came after loud protests from South residents who felt seeking new money for building additions at Central (where increasing enrollment has led to overcrowded facilities) was exercising poor fiduciary judgement when South had room for at least 350 students. (This year’s attendance numbers show 2840 students in Central and 1570 at South, a gap of 1270.). “Fill South First” became their rallying cry, and the board acquiesced, at least on the referendum proposal, which they tabled. Then, residents who lived in the buffer zone came out in droves to lobby the board not to touch the area in the middle of the district where parents can choose which of the two schools their children attend; the majority of whom have selected Central over the years. Another meeting or two and the board decided it would not form an attendance advisory committee to look at the issue as well as tabling all discussions of any attendance boundary changes, instead preferring to address the problem as a full board updating the 2008 Strategic Plan. And during the discussions about this vote, the five board members present all declared that they were voting this way with the understanding that nothing would be done to eliminate or modify the buffer zone, which had been expanded in June.
Finally, and most recently, the board has been discussing the possibility of an April referendum for a smaller, proportionately distributed increase, mainly to solve the Central overcrowding issue. (No one has been all that specific about what needs to be done at South, which was why the original referendum was skewed so significantly toward Central projects.) Again, amounts have been fluid, but now the range seems to have shrunk to up to $40,000,000 or less than $60,000,000. There has also been talk at a couple of school board meetings about creating an “international baccalaureate program,” a sort of school-within-a-school of advanced studies which would be housed in South and be able to “attract” students from the Central attendance area.
So, what does it all mean? First, and quite clearly, it indicates a board trying to please all of its constituents, but ultimately recognizing that the Central attendance area’s size and influence will prevent the most logical and cheapest solution—changing boundaries so students originally slated to attend Central or allowed to choose between the schools would now be required to go to South—from even being considered, much less taking place. Several people, including board members, have stated the buffer zone where families have a choice of schools is a bad idea, that it never should have been created in the first place. Yet, since it exists and the board will not antagonize its proponents by discussing any changes, it appears to be a permanent facet of District 86. And that also means that ALL current borders are inviolate and not subject to any modification—except, of course, when people seek an expansion of the buffer zone so those previously in the South area can now pick Central, which happened just a couple of months ago.
Therefore, the concept of altering school boundaries for the best allocation of resources and the least amount of building additions for short-term attendance fluctuations—as is the practice in some school districts (see this and this for two local instances)—is not going to be discussed, debated, or considered beyond the recent South parent outburst which never got beyond citizens reading prepared statements at board meetings. To give you an example of how different it can be other places, a colleague of mine lived a block away from an elementary school where he planned to send his daughter. Attendance growth spiked in other areas, however, and the new boundary for his nearby school was modified so that it ended on the other side of his colleague’s street; his daughter wound up being bussed over two miles away. And this took place between school years, with little notification. An extreme example, perhaps, but that’s appropriate in comparison to the extreme opposite that is starving South of students while revenues are raised to add on to Central.
And as we pointed out previously, the key problem is how poorly South is perceived by those in the Central attendance area. Why else would people be so aghast about the prospect of having to go there? Even the “international baccalaureate program” seems insulting to South: The only way that Central students could ever be enticed to enroll in South would be to create an honors school; one that has as little as possible to do with those currently there. You don’t have to stretch your imagination too far to see this school-within-a-school having a different name, parking lot, entrance, mascot, cafeteria, and even extra-curricular activities so that its students wouldn’t ever have to interact with “those” South people. You should know that I worked in District 86 at South for twenty-five years, often in leadership positions in my role as teacher union president and contract negotiator, not to mention teaching English honors classes, and not once did the international baccalaureate idea come up. The only reason it’s arisen now, I believe, is because the board is desperately seeking a way to make both sides of town happy. I’m pretty sure, though, South siders will see through a plan based on selling a separate-but-not-equal plan to Central residents (as well as the few South kids who qualify) to isolate them from the rest of the “ordinary” kids already in the school.
But I’d bet even a separate honors school wouldn’t be enough to get three or four hundred Central kids to transfer to South voluntarily. Plus, the logistics—specific applications and curriculum requirements have to be accepted by the licensing organization before a program can be labeled “international baccalaureate” which could entail years of planning and preparation—mean that it’s implementation is a ways off. So the April referendum proposal is much more likely to be the key solution to Central’s space issues; bids could be put out for additions to be completed in time for the 2017-18 school year. And there would be some remodeling and updating at South, probably using what could soon become standard operating procedure in District 86—proportional funding. With 64% of District 86 students now going to Central, according to the Chicago Tribune, “The board members said the spending in any new plan for facility improvements should be allocated between the two schools in a ratio that reflects their enrollment.” Does that mean District 86’s overriding policy of past years—“Whatever it takes to meet the needs of students”—will now mutate to a “$0.64 of every tax dollar needs to be budgeted for Central” approach?
Look, I understand how difficult this situation is for everyone: South people have felt overshadowed and overlooked for decades; Central residents (and buffer zone folks) believe the district has promised them the right to attend Central regardless of their opinions of South; and school board members are caught right in the middle between competing interests and conflicts that began many years ago. But this vacillating back and forth as they have will do nothing but exacerbate the problems, leaving everyone dissatisfied and angry. One board member even apologized to the buffer zone audience for creating undue “anxiety” with the board’s even mentioning changes. So having to think about maybe attending Hinsdale South has now become a stress disorder? The property value issue is another “factoid” seemingly designed to irk people who live in Darien (which has always been advertised as “A Nice Place to Live,” by the way). Homeowners’ beliefs that the selling price of their homes would plummet if South were their high school really should not be something a school board considers, much less endorses, but much of what has occurred at recent board meetings has indicated exactly that: The school board understands one of its two high schools is perceived as inferior by members of its communities, and it is not going to anything to alter that perception. In fact, through several of its actions, it has implied that it agrees with that assessment.
I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if there were evidence to support that belief, besides test scores. On safety, opportunity, rigor, course offerings, quality of teaching, facilities, and on and on; South is every bit as good as Central. If anything, due to the size differential, there are many MORE opportunities at South for extra-curricular activities and sports teams. Yes, there are differences as we’ve noted before, but none of them make Central quantitatively better for any student than South. The entering freshmen at Central have higher academic scores than those who go to South which accounts for differences on later achievement tests, but that has nothing to do with how far any one kid can go at either school. However, nobody is pointing this out except this ex-South teacher, who can easily be dismissed as biased. I would argue, however, that boosting the schools is a school board’s job as well. This board’s actions, I regret to point out, have not sent that message clearly, certainly not clearly enough.
It remains to be seen how the perception problem will ever go away, unless it is confronted directly, but at least this board is not taking the route past boards have with building projects—using surplus tax collections and issuing bonds rather than polling residents. Instead, it understands the intent of property tax laws and is seeking permission, through a referendum, to increase those taxes. The District 86 communities, then, will have the final say on whether to preserve the current dichotomy by spending more money to make Central bigger so that no one outside of South’s current attendance area has to go to South. And if voters reject increased taxes and the referendum…well, that would definitely put everyone in a more interesting and challenging position: What would be done to change the perceptions (which are either grossly exaggerated or false) that South is much worse than Central and that property values would crater in areas switched from Central to South? Would the board revert to old tricks by “finding” other ways to get the funds for a Central expansion? Either way, it looks like the April election—which will also feature four District 86 board positions on the ballot—should be quite interesting. I’m pretty sure we have not heard the last of the Attendance Wars in Hinsdale Township High School District 86.
For more on how public schools can be improved, you can check out my e-book, excerpts of which can be seen here.
Hinsdale District 86: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Recently, by a 4-3 vote, the Hinsdale Township High School District 86 school board decided, despite months of planning and deliberation, not to go forward with a referendum vote to authorize new revenues (tax increases) for making additions and renovations to Hinsdale South and Hinsdale Central. This comes on the heels of another controversial vote to expand the district’s buffer zone, in effect allowing more students originally slated to attend South to choose between the two schools. The issues may seem unrelated to the uninitiated, but they are linked to one another and point to challenging times ahead for the district.
I had argued that it was a bad idea to expand the buffer zone, and it appears many in the South attendance area agreed. “Fill South First” (a phrase coined by those in the community) has become a movement for those who believe that it’s wrong to increase property taxes with a multi-million-dollar plan to enlarge Central when South has room for more students. The buffer zone expansion only called attention to what many perceive to be inequity in how the board treats the two schools. After allowing an already overcrowded school increase its enrollment, the board was going to follow that up by asking property owners to increase their taxes, with most of that new money (70%) going to add on to the overcrowded school, which the board had just allowed to get even fuller. At the very least, it seemed tone-deaf on the part of the school board. And many South residents made their displeasure known, showing up in force to lobby the board with their opposition to the referendum. Many expressed their views at the August 15 school board meeting, and after those comments, the board voted not to go forward with the planned November vote.
Unfortunately, this solves nothing. First, and most importantly, Central is overcrowded, with some 350 students more than what school officials deem appropriate. The end result will be larger classes, cramped facilities, and fewer course offerings. When you have too many kids picking classes, the less mainstream courses often get axed as it becomes necessary to increase both the number of kids in each class as well as how many sections there are, especially classes which are requirements. Those bigger class sizes mean less opportunity for students to interact with their teachers and can result in teachers having to cut back on the assignments they make—there is only so much out-of-class work teachers can do, after all. Plus, in a school district with high expectations and standards like District 86 (Bias Alert: I worked at Hinsdale South for twenty-five years), the vast majority of teachers go all out all the time. Increase their pupil load, and they have to decrease the amount of work generated by each student in order to keep their heads above water. So those larger classes write less, do fewer projects, and take more objective tests (true/false/multiple choice rather than essay, for example). Given the high quality of teaching at Central and the terrific kids who go there, it is unlikely that the drop-off in academics will be readily noticeable to most, at least for a while, but any drop should be avoided if at all possible.
And that equity issue will now be at the forefront of every decision the board makes from now on. Don’t get me wrong: Fairness is a huge issue, especially when it comes to District 86 where many on the South side have felt like Cinderella compared to what they see as Central’s favored status. Some of that feeling, in my opinion, has come from Central’s highly publicized successes, from a record-setting eight IHSA state championships just two years ago to its lofty scores on standardized tests. So envy has played a part in South’s inferiority complex, but board moves—like the buffer zone expansion—certainly haven’t helped. Keep in mind that a parent stated to reporters one of the reasons which motivated him to push for his child to attend Central rather than South were “the opportunities there.” And the board did little to counter this perception—that Central provides better opportunities than South. That is simply an unacceptable attitude, even if only implied. Now that South residents have been sensitized to the issue, every expenditure or program will be scrutinized to make sure that no favoritism is involved. With subjective decisions the board has to make, often based on what’s “best” for the district, this need to avoid the slightest tinge of bias can hamstring its ability to make necessary improvements to Central, which is much larger and possessing some facilities much older than those at South.
The insistence on equity also ignores a key fact—the schools are different. Obviously, Central (for whatever reasons) is way bigger. According to the 2015 Illinois School Report Card for Central, enrollment was 2813 compared to South’s 1594. When one school has 1219 more students than the other, it’s impossible for things to be totally equal. From supplies to teachers, Central will consume more resources. There are also demographic differences shown on those Report Cards which have to be taken into account. Most significantly, the percentage of students from low income families is 32.2% at South compared with Central’s 8.1%. That is a very important statistic: Little is correlated more closely with academic success than family income; kids from wealthier families do better in school. The reasons for that can be debated endlessly, but the facts can’t be denied. (You can check out many different sources for this— here are a couple to get you started: a well-documented blog post, The School News Network, a Stanford study which was used as the basis for the book, Whither Opportunity, and a series of links put out from the American Psychological Association–there are hundreds more.) With a third of South’s students coming from low-income families, there will be more challenges in getting these students to the high standards District 86 communities have come to expect. This low-income population was one reason it was proposed that South should house a food pantry. Again with pressure from the community, this was also rejected by the school board. Regardless, students behind in their scholastic achievement typically require extra help, smaller classes, and more special education teachers—all of which are expensive and beg the equity question.
So now what? Central is over-crowded, South has a growing low-income population, many South residents are hyper-sensitive to board action which could be perceived as favoring Central or portraying South as more economically disadvantaged (which is a fact), and the board has tabled a plan to address building needs which had been worked on for some time by administrators, community members, and paid advisors.
The most obvious solutions are also the least likely: Redistricting could be used by the board to balance attendance at the two schools. Or, the two high schools could be unified with all freshmen and sophomores in one building, and juniors and seniors in the other (the “LT” approach). The first solution would be the simplest: 400 or so students who were supposed to attend Central would be required to go to South instead. You’d probably have to phase this in over four years, starting one year with freshman, followed by freshmen and sophomores, etc. Voila! Each school would be filled, South’s low-income population percentage would be decreased, and Central would have some room to breathe. (Not all agree with this view: The superintendent of District 86, Bruce Law, has stated moving 400 students out of Central would not address many of its issues. Maybe not, but there could be little doubt that it would ease some of Central’s space problems.) In the second scenario, combining the schools would achieve total balance as South and Central kids would be united to form a new district. Hinsdale High School would be born—although I’m guessing there would be some debate about that name, but it is “Hinsdale Township High School District 86” after all. (I told you the South people had been sensitized, didn’t I?)
But naming a unified school would be the easy part. Loyalties to traditions and places would lead to a huge uproar over the idea of transforming the two high schools in either of the ways listed above. The political fallout from that kind of change would be swift, significant, and loud. In short, it is probably unrealistic, at least for the foreseeable future, to consider either of those ideas as the answer to current problems. Not because they aren’t possible, workable, and the cheapest answers around, but for more emotional reasons. Some will suggest that racism plays a role in Central residents’ reluctance to send their kids to South or to combine the two schools (South’s black and Hispanic population totals almost 31% compared to Central’s 7%), some might argue income inequity is the root of the issue, and many would claim the “but it’s always been this way!” privilege. No matter how you look at it, a solid majority at both schools would probably be against combining the schools, and the families of the four hundred students who would be transferred to South would be justifiably upset, particularly if one of their key reasons for moving to Hinsdale, Oakbrook, or Clarendon Hills—being in Hinsdale Central’s attendance area (with its expensive real estate and property taxes)—was now suddenly being switched to the school many (unfairly, in my opinion) see as the lesser of the two.
Given the political hailstorm from either of these logical and economically sensible solutions, they both seem long shots, especially after the buffer zone expansion, which some of us did point out at the time sent the clear message that many District 86 residents considered Central the superior school, and by voting to allow the expansion, the school board was tacitly endorsing that view. With the need for additions to Central as well as repairs necessary for both buildings, the board will have to find other ways to get additional funds. So it will probably resort to tactics which have been employed many times in the past.
When District 86 felt the need for field houses, banks of new science labs, or entire annexes over the years—to say nothing of expensive library/auditorium renovations or air conditioning for both campuses—it has simply gone ahead with the projects, using either accumulated surpluses (in the Working Cash fund) or issuing bonds. The combined cost of all those projects over the past thirty years has easily (adjusted for inflation) exceeded the dollar amount of the rejected referendum, even using the higher $92.4 million figure. So there are ways for the board to get Central more space without seeking approval from District 86 community members.
However, that is neither ideal nor really in the spirit of the property tax laws, which generally require the financing for new building projects to be put to a public vote. But there are several methods that can be used to get the money. District 86 is currently in excellent financial shape, with only 5.6% of its allowable debt limit used (compared to Hinsdale 181 which had used 45.2% of its debt limit—both figures are as of 2015 and can be found here). Additionally, should District 86 be able to get its plans classified as “Life/Safety” work, it would have a great deal more latitude in levying new taxes (through bond issuances, typically) without needing the public’s authorization. Yes, that might be a bit of a stretch, but it’s not hard to envision some claiming that Central’s overcrowding is a safety problem. (For more on the various regulations on Illinois school boards’ taxing authority, this article, created by a law firm which specializes in giving financial advice to school districts, provides an overview.)
Finessing a solution without dealing with flawed beliefs about the two schools, though, seems to be merely kicking the problem down the road, which has been done many times before. And to its credit, the school board is already considering changing boundaries or eliminating the buffer zone. The core issue, however, is how the two schools are perceived by the community. Having worked for twenty-five years in South, I completely reject the notion of Central’s being better than South, but I do know it’s true that many—probably a majority—in the community believe it to be so. A key task the school board must begin, therefore, is to combat that perception. As we all know, reputations get established quickly, but stubbornly hang on long after they no longer apply, if they ever did. Changing the “Central good, South bad” view in the Central attendance area will be just as hard as altering the “South short-changed, Central favored” opinion of South siders. Sometime in the future, I’ll offer a few suggestions on how that might be done, but for now, the District 86 school board needs to figure out some solutions to the concerns it faces, both in its physical plants and community relations. Let’s hope that at least it now understands just how inexorably the two are tied together.
For more on how public schools can be improved, you can check out my e-book, excerpts of which can be seen here.
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