Central Resident Warns About South Influence

HINSDALE, IL – A Hinsdale resident this week warned about Hinsdale South High School's influence on Hinsdale Central.

At a school board meeting, resident Kim Notaro pointed to Central students' better performance on Advanced Placement exams compared to their counterparts at South.

She was speaking about Hinsdale High School District 86's long-term plan to align the two schools' curricula.

Hinsdale Central, which is in one of the wealthiest areas in the country, has nearly twice the enrollment of South.

Because it is smaller, South's course selection is considerably less than Central's. And a far greater portion of South's students come from low-income families.

Notaro said the rate of 4's and 5's on AP tests in social studies at Central is more than twice that of South. In science, the pass rate on AP exams is five times South's, she said.

"Yet we sit here and we listen, and we're bringing what South teaches to this school," Notaro said. "Are we to expect our proficiency scores and our scores on AP to go down?"

She added, "The program we have here in this school does an incredible job of preparing students."

State data shows that students at schools in wealthier towns nearly always do better on tests than their less wealthy counterparts.

It's not unusual for Central residents to resist importing ideas from South.

In 2019, the school board voted to reverse the traditional sequence of science classes to physics for freshmen, chemistry for sophomores and biology for juniors.

This was the way South had done it for years. However, many Central residents opposed the change. They included school board candidates who ousted incumbents in 2021.

Five of the six school board members are from the Central zone. Before member Debbie Levinthal resigned last month, it was six out of seven.