Dist. 87 changes worry parents

An effort by Glenbard High School District 87 to create one consistent curriculum across all four schools has some Glenbard West parents upset.

The move, they say, will eliminate an honors contemporary world history class that serves as a good college preparation course before advanced placement college-level classes begin.

The new plan, which has not been finalized, would advance the AP classes in the social studies curriculum to sophomore year.

Superintendent Mike Meissen spoke with nine concerned parents about the changes during a question-and-answer session at Glenbard North High School on Wednesday during the school's eighth grade night. The parents said they represented about 55 others in the school.

Meissen said the goal remains to improve performance across all four schools by making all courses available to all students.

"If we are going to measure growth and development of our kids, what are we measuring against?" he said.

He said department heads and principals at the district will meet in February to discuss their options.

"We are trying to make sure we have solid educational principles for all schools," Meissen said.

Currently, more than 200 courses are not offered at all four schools. As part of an effort to fix that discrepancy, the proposal alters the social studies track and eliminates the very popular history course and emphasizes civics. The board-directed initiative came as scores for several minority groups remain well below average in the district.

The move will aim to close what they have called an achievement gap.

"The board of education said this is a top priority for our kids," Meissen said.

But the parents, however, said removing the history class will do nothing to fix poor performance and only hinders those students in advanced classes from achieving academic goals.

One parent, Mary Ozag, said the move would affect a students' chance of attending Ivy League schools because transcripts would not include enough honors classes. Meissen said, however, that the move would not eliminate any other honors classes and that the AP classes would substitute.

As parents grilled Meissen for more than 80 minutes, they suggested that the problem was that some kids were just not ready for advanced placement as sophomores and that the contemporary world history course provided a good in-between step to get them ready for the college-level course.

But Meissen said that was not giving students enough credit and that a meeting sometime in February would take into account experts in several areas.

"I would like to see us stretch our kids and introduce them to AP classes earlier," he said. "We don't want to push them to the point that they break."