On Thursday, October 26, community members from both Hinsdale South and Hinsdale Central gathered as the District 86 Board of Education discussed the potential for the most dramatic shift in the district curriculum in recent memory.
At the October meeting, the Board conducted a preliminary reading of the 2024-2025 Program of Studies. Most notable is the proposed addition of several new social studies courses in Human Geography, Honors Human Geography, and AP World History: Modern at both schools.
Human Geography is replacing World History Honors, World Studies Honors, and World Cultures as the first social studies course freshmen take.
“Having seen what was being done at other schools in surrounding districts, we decided that implementing Human Geo would provide freshmen with a more modern perspective on global issues. In the Human Geo class, students would still learn the necessary reasoning and writing skill that would allow them to be successful in the AP Histories,” said Mr. Martin Nelson, a social studies teacher at Hinsdale South.
With regard to AP World History, Superintendent Yonke clarified at the October board meeting that no changes would be made to AP European History for next year. Nevertheless, a lack of clarity as to how AP Euro and AP World would run together remains.
Currently, the plan for how AP Euro and AP World would run at both schools is to have both courses run as sophomore classes, with students deciding which course they would like to take. The other course could potentially become an elective later on.
Given current course progression trends, if a student were to take both AP Euro or AP World, they would likely take one of the classes sophomore year and the other their senior year. However, this would then conflict with AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics, and AP US Government, which students typically take senior year and which are required for graduation. Very few students would be able to accommodate so many social studies courses in their schedule, forcing them to make compromises. Another factor to consider is whether seniors would be motivated to take another AP History course when they may already have two credits from sophomore and junior year.
At Hinsdale South, these plans may present difficulties. Given South’s smaller student body, there are fewer teachers and therefore fewer sections in which courses can run, increasing the potential for scheduling conflicts as more classes become available. Running both AP World and AP Euro may also result in students disproportionately taking one class over another, with World just now being introduced and Euro having been a foothold in D86 for years.
The Board did not officially approve any course requests thus far. The Board of Education is scheduled to discuss this topic again on November 16.
The proposed Program of Studies for 2024-2025 is linked below.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18wO7Ps-WrJjDcb36-qG2J8euCOEUq-e7/view
