'Polarizing' Sex Ed: Hinsdale D-86 Officials Disagree

BURR RIDGE, IL – A top Hinsdale High School District 86 official on Thursday explained the district's plans for sex education, with some parents and at least one board member expressing disapproval.

Earlier this year, the board voted unanimously to go with the latest update of the national sex education standards. Superintendent Tammy Prentiss said the district has been doing so for nearly a decade.

"Many K-through-8 (school districts) are choosing to opt out, but that's a different conversation and that is their business," Prentiss told the school board. "High school is different. As always, there is a process. The parent can reach out to any department when they would like to opt out of curriculum materials. That has not changed in District 86."

The district, Prentiss said, is making no substantial changes to its sex education curriculum. One change is for students to understand the definition of different terms, she said.

"It's not an instruction on lifestyle," she said.

At a board meeting two weeks ago, member Jeff Waters referred to the standards as "polarizing." He cited a study from the conservative group, Awake Illinois, that reported 20 out of 554 school districts statewide decided to follow the standards. The others are opting out.

Illinois has another 300 school districts that did not respond to Awake Illinois' survey.

Waters noted that several of District 86's feeder elementary school districts are among those opting out. An inequity exists, he said, when District 86 is following the national standards when some of its feeders are not.

He urged the board to vote again on the standards. Waters' board allies, Debbie Levinthal and Peggy James, also said they wanted to revisit the issue. The board's majority expressed no such interest.

At the meeting earlier this month, a few residents denounced the standards. One said the standards called for teaching children about the "panoply of sexual preferences." Another said they are "completely inappropriate."

The standards include discussions about consent and healthy relationships, anatomy and physiology, puberty and adolescent sexual development, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation and identity, sexual health and interpersonal violence.