Hinsdale High School District 86 Superintendent Tammy Prentiss recently asked neighbors to inform on each other in an attempt to provide appropriate “modeling” for children.
In a recent school board meeting, Prentiss advocated for parents to monitor one another and send in anonymous tips if a parent is out of compliance.
“One way that the community can help me - I receive emails, we have a tip line that some times people are starting to use…and basically rat out their bad acting parent/neighbor,” Prentiss said in a video.
Superintendent Tammy Prentiss
As an example, Prentiss encouraged neighbors to tell on other parents who may be hosting student parties.
“Parents if you are listening, please refrain from hosting all of those homecoming parties that are allegedly out there,” Prentiss said. “Students are talking about it to their teachers.”
Polly Ascher, former co-president of the Clarendon Hills Middle School Parent-Teacher Organization, called Prentiss out on Twitter.
“On what planet is it ok for a superintendent to encourage people to call the school tip line to 'rat out bad acting parents neighbors' for kids being kids? What kind of police state is she running? Hinsdale 86 has lost their mind,” Ascher tweeted.
There has been grumbling in the Hinsdale 86 community since Prentiss was elevated from her previous position at the school district. She was Superintendent of Student Services from July 2014 until appointed superintendent in spring of 2019. Prior to that she served as assistant director of the Cooperative Association of Special Education, a separate education entity within DuPage County, and for 19 years she worked for the Bloomingdale-Carol Stream Elementary District 93 as a special education teacher and director of special education.
Despite having no previous experience as a superintendent Prentiss was hired at a salary of $250,000 per year in addition to a generous benefits package.
Some parents have openly wondered why Prentiss was hired from within the school district rather than bringing an experienced external candidate.
School politics at Hinsdale 86 have noticeably worsened over Prentiss’s tenure.
An incident was caught on camera last year in which a tax hike amendment supporter harassed a tax opponent.
The school district threatened to cancel popular extracurricular programs such as football, cheerleading, marching band and wrestling if residents did not vote for the tax hike.
Recently the school board moved the audience comment period to the end of school board meetings after several parents made impassioned pleas to reopen schools.
Earlier this year the district was also forced to settle a lawsuit for muzzling political opponents during board meetings.
While only one board member voted against the settlement two others said they settled the lawsuit only to “make it go away.”
“The public has a right under the First Amendment and Illinois’ Open Meeting Act to criticize public officials and this lawsuit served to uphold that critical right,” Josh Burday of civil rights firm Loevy & Loevy Attorneys at Law, which represented the plaintiffs, said in press release.
Prentiss did not respond to a request for comment from the DuPage Policy Journal on whether she had read George Orwell’s “1984”.
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