Hinsdale South May Get More Teachers

DARIEN, IL — Hinsdale High School District 86 usually aims for class enrollments of about 25. But that may change.

At a special meeting Thursday, administrators asked the school board to make a number of exceptions at Hinsdale South High. They want approval for class sizes to be as low as a handful of students.

Doing this would require three more teachers at South, they said. Over four years, the cost is projected at $1.5 million.

South is half the size of Hinsdale Central, so South offers far fewer courses.

As a possible solution to the disparity, some residents suggest a boundary change between the schools to balance enrollments. But the board has shown little interest.

On Thursday, administrators said the additional teachers would help the school provide more courses, which would have lower enrollments than usual.

Some of those courses would be in science. Last year, the school board unanimously voted to offer two sequences of science classes.

In doing so, members promised courses in both sequences would be offered, no matter the enrollments.

In January and February, Central offered its students 415 unique courses, while South offered 362, or 53 fewer.

But many of South's courses apparently won't happen because of low enrollment.

According to a district presentation, 86 courses offered at South received no requests. Meanwhile, all academic courses at Central had at least one student request.

Those numbers are seen as a reflection of South's lower enrollment.

Some board members supported adding three teachers at South, but member Erik Held expressed reservations.

He noted the costs over four years of the additional positions. And he said the district's budget was already in deficit, requiring it to dip into its bank accounts.

Held said the three additional teachers would eliminate the "little wiggle room" left in the budget. He suggested increasing class sizes at Central as a budget-cutting move.

"We have a finite pool of resources to draw on," Held said.

After more than two hours, member Kathleen Hirsman, who was presiding over the meeting in President Terri Walker's absence, suggested the board study the issue until next Thursday, when the board is set to take a vote.

However, South Principal Arwen Pokorny Lyp said the special meeting was set up so that administrators could get clear direction on whether to hire three more teachers. She said time was tight.

"We would prefer to take this off pause," she said.

Board member Jeff Waters said a majority of members supported South's request.

During earlier public comments, a few residents pushed for the district to address the lack of courses at South compared to Central.

Burr Ridge resident Alan Hruby noted the district's stated goal of offering the same courses at both schools by 2024. But he cast doubt that it could do so without a big budget increase.

Hruby, a watchdog over District 86, said South would need 37 more teachers to offer the same courses as Central.

"You have a legal obligation to provide equal education opportunities to South students who have been shortchanged too long," Hruby said. "So it's time to either get out the checkbook to face the reality that aligning programs with imbalanced enrollments is expensive. Or it's time to start rebalancing those enrollments instead."