Gothard also founded the Advanced Training Institute, a controversial home schooling curriculum program based on Gothard’s beliefs. The show that gradually morphed from “17 Kids and Counting” to “19 Kids and Counting,” ended under a cloud of scandal after allegations surfaced that Josh Duggar, the family’s eldest son, had molested four of his sisters and a babysitter.Ĭentral to the family’s religious beliefs were the teachings of Bill Gothard, a minister who for decades led the Institute in Basic Life Principles out of a multimillion-dollar estate in northwest Hinsdale on Ogden Avenue, east of Route 83.īy his own estimation, millions of people attended his biblical-based seminars dedicated to his conservative family values.

For a seven-year span ending in 2015, cable TV viewers from across the country tuned in to TLC to watch the travails of the Duggar family - an Arkansas clan steeped in ultraconservative religious beliefs, perhaps best known for the sheer number of offspring it produced.

Lyons township high school ombudsman