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After being shuttered for three years amidst a series of complains of poor management and DCFS investigation, Maryville Academy's City of Youth has re-opened.
When Maryville was shut down in 2003, nearly 270 wards of the state called the Des Plaines campus home. Increasingly frequent acts of violence and sexual assault, a suicide on campus and bad management led to DCFS' decision to remove their wards from Maryville, with a mandate that Maryville review and implement changes to its programs in order to re-open.
The first arrivals came yesterday from a Maryville satellite on the city's west side. Under the new DCFS guidelines, Maryville will offer a student-to-teacher ratio of 3 to 1 as they work to rehabilitate these wards, who suffer from developmental disabilities and mental illness stemming from abuse, for future placement in foster homes. Maryville Academy will also be working with smaller numbers of youths than in the past.
We know from personal experience the need for some positive role models in our youth. We also know that the good deeds Maryville Academy has done in its existence far outweighs the events that caused it to be shuttered. We're glad to see Maryville back in the business of saving children and hope they can stay open for a long time.
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Have they removed the management from a religious community that has no business taking on a state job?
You may not know what bad deeds Maryville did to warrant closing, but I do and personally. In fact, I testified in the Illinos House about Maryville and I can tell you that it took nearly 10 years for government agencies to crack down after giving Maryville multiple opportunities for internal corrective actions. Yes, they have a good marketing image but some of that can be attributed to their being about to shield their bad deeds behind the laws protecting juvenile privacy.
What things happened at Maryville?
Well, one little boy I dealt with was one of many being prostituted to local men in the local park's pool locker room by a park district employee during Maryville field trips. What action did Maryville take when his brother, also living at their facility, told the Maryville staff? None - not good for their image. It wasn't until the kid bled out from you know where that the hospital he was rushed to had to report the activity to police.
How many kids were raped by other kids while in the Maryville facility. Plenty. While their identities were private, the police stats for that address revealed the problem to our community.
Where were the kids at night? Out on the streets, some selling drugs, some hanging, some making money as prostitute and punching car windows for stereos. Where were the kids during the day? Not a school where I was a school council member. They just let them come back in in the morning and sleep it off rather than attending school.
Why were some of these kids there? The courts adjudicates juvenile delinquentsthat the parents can't handle into DCFS care. The state is supposed to place those kids in secured facilities - an midway alternative to jail and totally unsecured facilities, but it does not. Thus, Maryville took both innocent babes and adjudicated delinquents and comingled them in unsecured facilities. Guess who go pregnant? Guess whose neighborhood experienced car jackings, intentional house fires, robberies and beatings of elderly persons coming from the Jewel and currency exchange? The Maryville model did not work and they failed to adjust it even when their facility consumed on average the resources of 2 local police on each shift to respond to and write up the crimes? Security? What security?
I understand how one longs to be sympathetic to perceived do-gooders, but like doctors they should do no harm while they are doing it. Maryville miserably failed that standard.
HELLO TO ALL FRIST OF ALL I WOULD LIKE TO SAY I AM A POSTIVE GROWN MAN FROM MARYVILLE CLASS OF 1985,I SEE THINGS HAVE CHANGE FROM MY LAST INCOUNTER WITH MY OLD HOME.AT the time i was at maryvile i was set in the right direction and the staff were on top of things .The court system put the kids in a good place to give them a better chance instead of being that unjus name everone calls the system.For me i made things better for me because i was hard headed stubrun and didn't want to obaye athurity or any one telling me any thikng but my mom and pop some people try to tell me that there;s better thing s todo in life it took me a min to realize that and mad the adjustment to my life.My family teacher and they'er asst really teached us the basics bottom line to life.the Colemon tony and linda did what and beyond there control for us .And as far as the rest of maryville it was a blessing for me and a lot of others .It seem to me that as time move on the kids change for the worst,some time the old system has to change for it to work in the new age the laws have changed to punish the law brakers ,Now the staff at maryville only know one way to resolve a problem and thats the way they were talt to do ,teach some thing new and it might preveal a change .See kids change they have bs programs with kids talk back to the parents ,tv is a meth to what life is supose to be.not what it really is .the truth hurts some times but thats jus the way it is. Father JOHN P SMYTH ran Maryville with love and a huge hand two of them "not to beat a kid but to embrace them with talk comunication to family ur;s was important to him. school 1# in the city Maine West township,that was the high school to be in .I myself now 42yrs old Superintendnt For Perini Building corp.$10.000,000,000,000,00 jobs ,100,000.00 a yr and love my job. don't get me wrong i've had bad days too real bad ones but never drugs or alcoh jus jugdement in life .i live in las vegas nv were i work thats the reason i move here 10yrs ago.I would love to get together with any one that want to help these kids and Maryville stay on the right track GODS WAY. 1 love Mr,James Brown