Hillside Academy more like jail than school

tbonz wrote:

from about 1985 to 1992, I was enrolled at Hillside Academy and the life there was more like life in a jail than life in a school. Primarily a school for behavior disordered students, Hillside Academy is a very restrictive place. The school day may only be about 5 hours in length, but it is spent in a continuous study hall type of class. There are very few privileges, the students are generally extremely rough and can get quite hostile and aggressive at times. If one messes up, he is either locked up in a small room with a heavy steel door, or he is slammed to the floor and restrained. To make it even worse, summer school is, like, totally mandatory. Being enrolled at Hillside Academy is about as close as one can come to being put in jail; students are known to occasionally even run away (booking), but they are usually recaptured, restrained, and put under in room lockdown.(In fact, the staff are even known to confiscate one's shoes for "booking"!)

I have a sibling there and he was just man handle by a staff member/teacher and we are headed in a serious direction of a law suit. Where you ever handle rough by staff or ever been exposed to another student who was? thanks

I used to work at their sister academy Lockport Reed and if you think that Hillside was rough, Lockport was even more so

Tough measures for tough situations. Oppurtunities are offered, the wise take advantage and excell, the foolish continue to be difficult and fail. I made it. So can others. Other posters must be frustrated by their innability to ruin a school. I know someone starting this fall. He will have a chance to get his diploma.

I was a student when it was a minor seminary administered by the catholic order of Servites ...it definitely was a jail then...BAD KARMA!!!!

I went to Hillside and that place was no joke. I quit school because of that place, gang infested and the classrooms were a gang by themselves. I was in Mr.K's class that just came from my prior school of Southeast Alternative school.. High School end was the roughest part in which I was apart of.. it was a jail.. it was a bad place to be when you were a kid growing up and I regret half the shit I did to get there.

There is no way to explain how much you fought there.. every single day there was a problem with ppl running in or watching to fight your classmate.. so we all banded together to protect the class.. but I do admit this was and will forever be the worse school I have went to.

Fox Tech in Aurora sent me to another school that was similar to Hillside called AEC.. Aurora Educational Center..on the east side which is a gang infest part of town.. the windows were plexi-glass because the the Kings out there were shot up the place.

But Hillside is by far the worse school in Illinois.

To.. that Lockport Reed school.. no place is worse than Hillside taking it from experience going through 11 schools in my four year high school term.. I was at everywhere from Chicago's Pride to Aurora's AEC.. and have seen it all.. I have talked and known people from Reed.. that school pales in comparison to Hillside.. Hillside was more of a gang on gang violence than anything.. I was in the high school part and I will tell you there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't fight someone..

I went there too.
it was rough.
Man I'm surprised it still exists.
i was jus tellin my homie
bout what goes down there and he was
lookin at me weird.
he got trust issues.
so i looked it up on yahoo to show him.
I had my share of problems there.
being locked in them small rooms was like bein
in prison,and at times i was very uncomfortable.
that shit ain't education.
I'ts incarceration.
I had homies there.
I don't regret what i did to get there.
I don't regret going there.
I guess i'm one of the lucky ones.
i feared the staff a lil bit.
and had beef with a few students.
but i had a lotta homies there.
so if yall was on your own here i can see your point of view.
cook county just throws away the "worst"
kids and sets em up
for some columbine type shit.
i'm sorry to anybody i ever beat up or threatened.
But you know as well as I know that a bitch in that situation got rode on like one.
they use to call me pizzle folks...
if u remember me
hit up these spots.
www.myspace.com/psinasta
www.myspace.com/overriderecords

if you idiots would have behaved yourselves in the first place you never would have been sent there

Wow, do I recall this hell. I was jumped on, got fights over my shoes, Mr. White, a huge black teacher(think Pro Footbal The Refrigrator Perry of The Bears)and Mr. Dowl. They would pick up the kids and slam them hard to the ground. One kid tried to lay down in submission when they came, only to me picked up and slammed anyway. This school was on the news several times...Unforunately, your lawsuit MAY NOT win, as parents sign a waver that if you did not read ALL of, you would have not seen that you gave 100% authority for "Necessary Use of Force" They will simply claim it was NEEDED to gain control of a violent kid.

To hell with Hillside. I dont ever want think of this again.

iiM G0iN TH3iR AFT3R SPRiNG BR3AK...
iiT SUCKS!!!!!

Is everyone thinking what I am thinking from reading these posts? That Hillside Academy has gotten worse since 1992?

mike wrote:

Is everyone thinking what I am thinking from reading these posts? That Hillside Academy has gotten worse since 1992?

Or just maybe the kids are getting worse...Next time be home by curfew, don't commit crimes as a juvenile, behave, and act like a civilized human being, and you won't be sent to a place that treats you like the animal that you behave lie. Keep up the good work Hillside!

blue blood wrote:

<quoted text>Or just maybe the kids are getting worse...Next time be home by curfew, don't commit crimes as a juvenile, behave, and act like a civilized human being, and you won't be sent to a place that treats you like the animal that you behave lie. Keep up the good work Hillside!

Exactly!...Read some of the previous post...ex. "I went to 11 school in my 4 years of HS"....thats why Hillside Academy sucks becasue it is a school of last resort....before you actually go to jail. Do you think the town of Hillside likes havibng all these criminals in there town... I dont...And as far as the faculty getting physical...your parent sign waiver when they send you there so they can get physical with the students/inmates that are there.

I also happen to remember that Hillside Academy's cafeteria was very dirty, very unclean, and there was a wall that was losing its tiles. The food there tasted terrible so I very rarely ever even touched their food. Some areas were so dirty it made me almost sick just looking at it and other areas my shoes actually even stuck to the floor! I actually have visited the high school sector many times before and it was totally rough, like going through a hurricane in a canoe. By the way, the small rooms that students were locked in for misbehavior were called timeout rooms. The timeout rooms in the high school sector were also very filthy with dried saliva on the walls and graffiti.(In fact, practically every single timeout room had graffiti all over the walls!) Also, when I was first enrolled there and locked in the timeout rooms, it was so intolerable that I actually kicked and banged the door. And apparently, it must have caught the attention of other students because about 4 or 5 years into my sentence at Hillside Academy, nearly every single timeout room door was broken and would not stay closed anymore. Once, a high school student hurt my arm by pulling hard on it, another time, I saw another student with a 1 inch long by about half inch deep laceration on his forehead. You people are right; every single day, somewhere in the school, there was a fight, and not a single hour would go by without someone somewhere getting restrained.

In fact, even though i left that school for good in October 1992, I still have nightmares of hillside academy, or should I call it "hillside academic correctional institution", or even "the prison school." The rough and demonic students, the interrogateous staff, the restraints, the sickly filthy cafeteria. As for my initial starter thread, I now feel as if it really should say; "Hillside Academy more like prison than school", since students are usually there indefinitely, some for as long as 15 years!

Get a clue wrote:

Do you think the town of Hillside likes havibng all these criminals in there town.

They are not just in hillside; from my experiences, Hillside academy students also happen to come from the gang and crime ridden ghettos of Chicago's west side and Cicero's north end.

It's not that bad. I come to this school and I like it. I actually don't wanna go back to my home school. They pay us for our good behavior and the school really got fixed up. It is the last resort, but i know from experience that it really does turn kids attitudes around.

frist year i was at hillside they broke my arm but
hillside isn't so bad.there is still a lot of fights .we get paid a good amount of money enough for liquor and somkes. i graute next year i'm going to miss the free money.

J-DIEHL 1987 wrote:

I ALSO ATTENDED HILLSIDE FOR SEVEN YEARS, THIS WAS A PLACE WHERE GOOD OLD DUPAGE COUNTY PUT ME BECAUSE I WAS A TROUBLED YOUTH, HILLSIDE NEVER CHANGED ME, IT ONLY MADE ME MORE ANGRY BEING THERE. THE STAFF WERE ABUSIVE, SO IN TURN I WAS ABUSIVE TOWARD THEM, IT CAME DOWN TO ALL OUT BOXING QUITE A FEW TIMES, THE MEMORIES WILL NEVER LEAVE ME! IF YOU HAVE A FAMILY MEMBER ATTENDING HILLSIDE, YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO WHAT THEY TELL YOU!!! THE STORIES THAT THEY COME HOME AND TELL YOU ARE NOT LIES!!! HELP YOUR FAMILY MEMBER AND GET THEM THE HELL OUT OF THERE!!!!!

What is the school about? Is it only for kids w/ behavior troubles or what?