1 Area Dominates Lyons Township High Board

LA GRANGE, IL – Lyons Township High School board members spent some time this week discussing the algebra curriculum in La Grange School District 102.

District 102 is the largest of five elementary districts that feed students into the high school. Its students make up about 35 percent of the high school's enrollment.

On the school board, six of the seven members are from District 102, which includes much of La Grange and La Grange Park.

The members from District 102 are President Dawn Aubert, Jill Grech, Michael Thomas, Tim Albores, Jill Beda Daniels and Elvia Nava. Patch verified that information through property tax records.

The lone member outside District 102 is Kari Dillon, an Indian Head Park resident who lives in La Grange Highlands School District 106.

Earlier this year, the lack of representation elsewhere in Lyons Township High School's area became apparent. That was when the board unsuccessfully tried to sell its land next to Pleasantdale Elementary School to an industrial developer.

Residents in Willow Springs and Burr Ridge rose up in opposition. They made the case the board would have never considered such a deal for land next to District 102's Cossitt Elementary School in downtown La Grange.

Recordings from the board's closed sessions later revealed high school officials purposely kept their counterparts from the village of Willow Springs and Pleasantdale School District 107, which feeds into the high school, in the dark about the land deal.

Those same recordings showed board members and their lawyer bashing Willow Springs officials, implying they were uneducated.

Lyons Township High School is hardly the only entity whose board lacks members from large parts of its area.

Until recently, six of the seven members of the Hinsdale High School District 86 board lived in Hinsdale Central High School's zone. Just one was from Hinsdale South's area. Last month, the board picked a South resident to fill a vacancy, bringing South's number to two.

Hinsdale South's enrollment is half Central's, so its course selection is considerably less. It also has a much higher percentage of low-income students.

Proposals to move the attendance boundary to equalize the enrollment between the two schools go nowhere. The idea is considered politically toxic, with residents in Hinsdale fearing their property values would plunge if they shifted to South.