York High Teacher's Lessons Defended

ELMHURST, IL — A retired Elmhurst teacher publicly defended one of York High School's social studies teachers from a parent's criticism that her lessons had a liberal bias.

At Tuesday's school board meeting, David Venetucci, who taught at York and Churchville Middle School before retiring in 2014, said the goal of teachers was to help students think, not what to think. He said York social studies teacher Lindsey DiTomasso follows that philosophy.

Venetucci said the public claim that DiTomasso fails to teach both sides of issues reveals her critic's discomfort with ideas that conflict with his own.

When Venetucci brought up DiTomasso's name, board President Kara Caforio asked Venetucci not to identify employees by name, although she allowed resident Tom Chavez to speak out against DiTomasso by name two weeks earlier.

Ventucci objected to Caforio's request, saying it was important that he name the person he was defending. Caforio relented.

He continued by saying that DiTomasso fosters students' intellectual curiosity and critical thinking, challenging their pre-existing beliefs about American history.

"That's not biased or one-sided classroom instruction. That's an approach all excellent history and humanities teachers employ with their students," Venetucci said. "If it sounds like I'm a little upset about all this, you are right. I am angry. I worked with Lindsey at York. She is an outstanding veteran teacher who cares deeply about her craft and about doing what's best for students."

He said it was stressful enough teaching these days without being subjected to "public assaults from disgruntled parents." He said it was reassuring that DiTomasso's colleagues and building administrators support her.

"But that's not enough," Venetucci said. "DiTomasso also deserves public support from district administrators and this board of education. Failing to support teachers subjected to inappropriate public criticism erodes staff morale and enables the current escalating frenzy of the culture war protests that are occurring in school districts all across this country."

Chavez, who has a son at York High School, spoke again about what he saw as a liberal bias in the classroom.

"What I'm demanding is fairness in the curriculum. Our schools should be ideologically neutral," he said. "Our community and our country work best when we share respect and appreciate different points of view."

He said he was compiling testimony from current and former York students as well as social media posts from teachers that he said show a liberal bias in the classroom.

"In time, I will present all the evidence that I'm in the process of gathering," Chavez said.

He did not identify DiTomasso by name in his speech Tuesday. He has taken issue with DiTomasso's use of the Zinn Education Project, which he said was part of a broader effort to indoctrinate York students with Marxist ideology.

Patch has seen no evidence that York teachers are promoting Marxism, which contains the theories that form the basis for communism. Martin Luther King Jr. and the wider civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s were often accused of being communist.

The school board and administrators have not publicly weighed in on the issue of DiTomasso's curriculum. Nor has the teachers union. DiTomasso has not returned Patch's messages.

Earlier this school year, a number of students spoke to the school board, saying teachers showed bias in their lessons.