I joined this forum because I saw your post while surfing the web, and I couldn't believe it! (sorry, I'm actually a female, and I notice that this site is for males, but I was a kid there too). I was there in 1971-1972, and I have so many strange memories of the place. I was 6 when I was there, but I was in the school, I believe it was called the Garden School. I grew up in a neighboring community,but I was targeted by the special ed people there to need to attend a "special school". I was bused there every day, and returned home every night. It took my parents a long time to believe what I told them, and when they finally did, they investigated, and found out that my school system was receiving state funding to send kids there. They had to threaten to sue to get me out of there. About 15 years ago I was driving around Belleville and I suddenly came upon the building and just started to panic. I had no idea why until I mentioned it to my mother and she told me that I had attended school there. I have since thought about it, and (I don't know why I didn't do this before!) I decided to surf the web to see what I could find out about this place. What I remember is being in a class with kids who rocked in corners and made funny noises, I remember it was really dirty there, I remember kids being held down, screaming, rooms where they locked you up if you did anything wrong, I remember the playground and the fence around it,I remember my favorite stuffed animal being stolen and nobody doing anything about it, I remember being told repeatedly that I was crazy, and lots more stuff that is very fuzzy. I got out of that place, back to regular school, and I grew up to become a child psychiatrist, probably in part because of what happened to me. No kid should have to go through what we all did. You guys talked about the shelter (there were shelter kids at the school, too- I remember being told that these kids were homeless, which was my first exposure to that concept) Does anyone remember the school?
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