'Systemic Racism' In Hinsdale D-86?

DARIEN, IL — The disparities between Hinsdale Central and South high schools got lost in the school board's factions and personalities last week.

In May, board member Debbie Levinthal proposed a committee to look at course offerings and schedule conflicts. This was in response to South students' complaints about the lack of course selection last spring at their school compared with Central.

At last week's board meeting, Levinthal finally got an item on the agenda about her proposals for that committee and another one on curriculum matters. But Levinthal's former campaign ally, board President Terri Walker, barred Levinthal from even speaking about her ideas.

Walker took a poll and found only three of the seven members would entertain Levinthal's proposals. After an argument between Levinthal and Walker, the board president moved to other matters.

The differences between Central and South are hard to ignore. Central is in Hinsdale, one of the wealthiest towns in the United States. Darien-based South has a much higher percentage of low-income students. Yet South, which is half Central's size, has significantly fewer course offerings.

Six of the seven board members live in the Central zone. Cynthia Hanson is the lone member from South.

Near the end of the meeting, Linda Burke, who lives in the Central area, denounced the effort to muzzle debate on the committee on course offerings. She questioned the morality and fairness of giving fewer opportunities to the less wealthy school.

She noted Central students have difficulty accessing South's American Sign Language classes.

"But our school with a higher low-income population is losing out even more," Burke said. "I don't see how this is not systemic racism, bordering on Jim Crow, to condone this, to allow this to go on, to refuse to even discuss fixing this."

She said Hinsdale High School District 86 knows how to combine smaller enrollment classes by using technology and alternating teachers back and forth for the sake of equity.

"You can never get to 100 percent equality between two freestanding high schools," she said. "But we could get to 95 percent."

Earlier this year, Alan Hruby, a Burr Ridge resident, researched the disparity between the schools and found that Central offered 90 more unique courses than South — a number with which district officials agreed.

Last week, Hruby submitted a written comment for a Patch story about the argument between Levinthal and Walker on the committee. He said he was skeptical that Levinthal's interest in forming a committee for course offerings would achieve a successful result in "our grossly imbalanced school district." Such an effort, he said, would probably result in another victory for the "majoritarian" political interests.

At the same time, Hruby said Walker seemed to be selectively wielding board policies to prevent a discussion.