What Would Rudy Say?

By Erin in News on Apr 13, 2006 4:16PM

When Chicagoist was attending high school at Joliet Catholic Academy in the early 90s, a girl in our class totally got busted by the dean for carrying around a bowl in her purse. Back then, Chicagoist hadn't known what a bowl looked like, let alone smoked pot out of one. No one else really did, either. But it was the talk of the school - someone was smoking weed!

Imagine our surprise, then, to wake up this morning to learn that the kids down at JCA have graduated from just a few kids with the south suburban blues dabbling in drugs to eight of them operating a full-scale drug ring, peddling cocaine, heroin and ecstasy.

A few weeks ago, we heard rumors from some well-connected teachers that something was amiss down at JCA but that school being plagued with substance abuse problems is nothing new. Alcohol, however, was always the drug of choice. So when we heard that cocaine had become a problem we sort of scratched our heads over it: Who in J-town could afford such a pricey drug? Now we just have to assume that kids were getting a break on their blow from their classmates, perhaps offering to complete the monster AP English paper due in Ms. Frey's class this semester, which we totally know puts a cramp on Spring Break.

We really want to say that we're genuinely surprised that this has happened but we're just not that naive. We're certainly saddened and disappointed - it's a good school with, for the most part, good people working there - but we're not surprised. Mostly we're just glad that the Joliet cops moved in when they did because for as amusing as it initially seems, 17-year-old honor students should be concentrating on how to score with their classmates on Prom night, not how to score a tab of ecstasy.