Villa Park High School, 9-12 (Public)

Villa Park does not have the best environment that's suited for learning. From experience, the students here are not friendly nor do they get along with other students easily.

VPHS has some serious problems when it comes to teachers. Mainly, the French program is horrible due to an incompetent and lazy instructor who seems not to care at all whether the students learn or not. Many of the teachers are disorganized and lack true professional and vocational qualities. Most of the teachers seem to teach only for the money - they do not seem motivated at all. There is very little parent involvement. The principle seems to try hard to please everyone but ultimately there is very little action from his part. The only good thing about it is the HONORS Science department.

I attended Villa Park High School and i have to say that it was a truly bad experience for me. I took many classes, such as AP, Honors, etc. and one thing all the teachers have in common is laziness and just horrid teaching skills. Probably 3/4th of the teachers should be fired. The teachers i have had throughout my years did not at all care for their students but care about getting the day over with. Most teachers just put movies as their lessons; while some didn't even know how to orally teach the class without reading from the book directly. In addition, they gave too much homework its ridiculous, especially in AP classes. The students weren't too bad, it was just the environment inside the classroom and the horrid teachers. VPHS should really start evaluating its teachers more frequently and randomly, to see the real truth.

i am currently a student at Villa Park High School, and have had the best expirence of my life. Personaly, the school isnt the best in the district, but i do not think you will be disapointed if you or your child attends. The ASB program was impecable, and the last years ASB president, Jeff, did an amazing job. Although he did not finish his term, the ASB still was awsome. I was in Cross Country, and not impressed by the main coach, but the assistant coaches were awesome, i still love running. in the end, the school set me up for live, and i am thankful i went there

VPHS has an excellent band and music program. The school has great school spirit and is a safe and good place for kids to learn and prepare for college and beyond.

I graduated from VPHS in 2004 and went on to graduate from UC Berkeley in 2008. VPHS has a wide breadth of AP courses and excellent honors course teachers that I would highly recommend. This is definitely a good school for honors students.

I currently have 1 at VPHS and 2 that have graduated. School is overall good but there are some teachers who are worthless. The administration is very helpful at solving issues you just have to be determined.

Academically very challenging if your child is an honors or AP student. If you child is a good student but not gifted, there is no special placement for them. They are put in classes with behavior problems and kids who don't care about school. I think you would get an inferior education compared to private schools if you are an average student. The counselors are not very accessible to parents and can be intimidating to the kids.

I currently just finished my first year at Villa Park. As an honors student I felt that I was definently challenged though the couselors give very little attention about your schedule needs and the students going into AP classes. The sports teams and extracurriculars are amazing and there are many opportunities. However if you are a student of lower class you might feel a little out of place.

I am a former student and I loved this school. Most of the faculty is amazing, full of caring individuals. Of course, there are many that are downright awful, and the counselors make your life exceedinly difficult. However, lots of spirit, lots of activities, chances to get involved, and nice assemblies.

I am currently sending my 2nd daughter through this school, and not impressed this time either. My 1st daughter was a 4 year varsity soccer player so she slipped by because she was liked by the teachers. My 2nd daughter was straight A's at CV and went down to C's and D's at Villa Park. I left many messages with teachers and only received one call back out of at least 6 to 8 messages and 3-4 emails. No effort to keep her on tract from the teachers. Very disturbing if you ask me. I am probably not going to send my 3rd girl to VP. Also the cheer program is all political.

I am not a parent, but instead a former student who is now attending a state university. I feel that Villa Park has many great things to offer students. The teaching staff is almost always willing to help struggling students, the Student Government (ASB) and athletics keep your child involved. I went into highschool as a B average student, and improved to about a B+ A- student by the time I graduated. Although everything sounds great, there are always places to improve on. Counselors are hard to reach, they don't respond to phone calls, so just march in and ask for an appointment. Also, if your child is severly struggling, contact the teacher as soon as possible, because they take a while to get back to you.

Villa Park High School is an excellent school. They pay attention to the students who have a future and work hard, like the honors and AP students.

My older sister attends the Villa Park High. She was struggling in some of her classes and the teachers took the time to bring her up to date. Now she is an honor student! The teachers give great individual attention and care about how you are doing. Villa Park is amazing school and the best in the area!

If I had to do it over I would not of had my kids attend this school. Unless your child is in honors classes, my experiance is, you'll get little to no help in making sure your child has good quality teachers, and is on track for college.

I am currently a freshman at VPHS, and I belive that there are a lot of teachers who care, as well all some who dont. But your child will suceed if he/she really wants to.

My child experienced racism when he attended this school. The teachers did not care about the students.

Both of my children have gone to VPHS. It is a great school. Both of my boys were in sports and clubs. Teachers are great.

Great school. Outstanding teachers as well as students

I have put 3 generations into VPHS, My children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. I wouldnt pick another school. Their moral and professionalism is outstanding. And I feel they are safe here compaired to anywhere else.

My daughter's English teacher was bright, caring, trained, and helpful. My daughter is a struggling reader and became inspired. She progressed in math and has had two great years so far. The negative reviews worry me about the past of the school, but from a concerned parent to another, this is a great school for all students. If you have a question about an assignment from a teacher (i.e. its relevance, ask him or her; he or she will explain.

Villa Park is committed to academics. I am impressed with staff care and involvement. The guidance counselors are very much up with students' academic needs for everyday school, college and graduation. It is a school with much parental involvement. The school is safe with enforcement of discipline.

This is a great school all of the teachers do a great job. The parents are pretty involved especially when it comes to sports and the booster clubs. However the school security guards and certain teachers choose favorites and are really hard on other students which isn't very cool. They should be fair to all. I think the campus is great and the students there are all fantastic. They do great jobs and they are all very responsible.

This is a great school. Those who are not in a very high income bracket, however, may feel a little out of place.

It's my daughters second year at Villa Park and I find that most of the teachers are willing to work close with the kids.

I am pulling my daughter out of this school, so is my next door neighbor. Every kid on our street is struggling. This is not one kid falling through the crack...the crack is a gaping hole. Simply aweful disappointing experience. Tired of excuses.

Villa Park is not a school I would recommend. Lack of communication between teachers, attendance and administration seems to be widespread. We had nothing but problems with the Villa Park Counselor. She was less than helpful and repeated calls went unanswered. The quality of the teachers on the whole seemed fine. It was the lack of communication that bothered me. Seeing a grade slip from A to C and not being notified even when I would call in request for progress. It just seemed as if the school administration, counselors and a few of the teachers didn t want to be bothered. Encouragement seemed in short supply.

Our experience at Villa Park has been that the counselor's don't really care what happens with their students. They act like it's a real chore to actually help a kid. The only time my son saw his counselor was when there was a problem. He tried six times to have his counselor call him to the office to discuss his class schedule. She never called him in. I had to take a day off of work to get things straitened out. If your kid isn't on the honor roll or in AP classes they won't get any attention from teacher's or staff. Average kids don't have a chance at this school.

There has been a definate drop in every aspect of Villa Park this year. The female students come to school half dressed, truancy and tardies are not enforced, known gang members attend the school and the list goes on. As other parents have stated, if your student is an AP student or in the top of the class and you stay on top of everybody, you're probably OK. If your child is a 'B' or lower, send them to a Catholic High School like Servite or Mater Dei.

Although it doesn't look like it from the outside or the inside, money controls this school intellectually and socially.

I am not a parent but I just graduated from V.P. in June 2003. This school prepared me very well for college. V.P. shaped a little punk freshman girl who once had a low G.P.A. and did not care about school, into a homecoming queen/Vice president of ASB who's G.P.A. improved greatly due to wonderful caring faculty. Local schools come to our assemblies because they are awesome. The programs keep getting better. The free math tutoring program helped me greatly. I think Villa Park is a wonderful school and your child can get numorous oppertunities to succeed if they apply themselves.

While Villa Park has some very dedicated and excellent staff, I found many teachers to be lacking in both teaching skills and adequate knowledge. Also, I feel that Villa Park doesn't offer enough AP tests to produce students that are competitive with other schools in the country, or even county.

The school band is great and deserves our support, our time and money

Our experience the last 3 years have been a challenge. My student and I work with the people on campus that had the information that we were interested in. We found excellent guidence from teachers and the Principal and Vice Principals. Our lack of trust because of misinformaton on the part of the counling deparment, us running to top advisors. This has been brought to the attention of our new Principal and I am sure that the couseling services will be upgraded.

This school gets worse every year. This yar, the staff at the counseling office are slacking off with the student's class schedules and when you try to fix them they are nothing but rude most of the time. The staff at the attendance office can be just as rude. In English instead of learning something useful students are required to recite & sing poems by Shel Silverstein (this is no Amerian Idol). I think this school is very disorganized this year and not all the students get treated equally, there are always the favorite students.

As a family, our experience has been very different from these other 3. As parents, we take our kids' education quite seriously. Each school year, we contact each teacher and let them know that we are available to help them accomplish his/her job, and we leave them with a list of phone numbers to contact us with concerns/issues. We contact the attendance office monthly to make sure our students are on track. We schedule appointments with counselors/teachers when problems arise and escalate concerns to the principal if need be. Each year we are impressed with the results our kids achieve both in the classroom and as indicated in test results. Teachers, counselors, and the vice principal have responded to our concerns in a timely and interested manner. You and you kid(s) will get only what you are prepared to put in with regards to a successful experience at Villa Park High. If you think someone is going to care more about your student's success than you or your child does, you will probably be disappointed in the results. We are quite pleased with the performance of the school, its staff, and (most importantly) our kids.

I have found that the teachers cannot make 'A' students. It is usually the parent(s) example and expectations and structure at home that make a successful student. The teachers are to teach the state mandated curriculum. We are just starting out at VPHS so we have not alot of experience to judge from here yet but are very encouraged by the process a so far. Summer sports programs have been good. Parent involvement is outstanding.

Villa Park is one of the best schools around. The students are excellent and the faculty are easy going. Most teachers do care about the student's education and involvement in extracurricular activities. True, that some teachers do favor and give more attention to Advanced Placement students but they also strive to help the average students. We cant neccessarily blame the teachers for not giving enough attention, it's also the students responsibility to request attention and ask for any help they may need. If a student were to ask a teacher a certain question, I dont think that teacher would just simply ignore them. The student has to be willing to learn and push for their goals. Advanced Placement students are just students who would want to push harder and learn more. Anyone in high school can be in an advancement class. I'm saying that students have the opportunity to push their education at a greater level, they're just too lazy or unwilling to learn. So once again, the teachers aren't always the ones to blame.

After sending four children through Villa Park High School, I can honestly say that none of them were adequately prepared for college. Two of my children did well academically; two did less well. The school served none of them adequately.

After four years of struggling with the staff of Villa Park I have to say I am extremely dissapointed in thier lack of effort in trying to make the average child learn. When they have a straight A student the teacher care and strive, but the average student is merely pushed through and not challenged even when parents like myself have requested that they push and assign 'real' assignments. Teachers frequently assign tasks at the 6th grade level, the students love it because they do not have to try to be anything more than a sixth grader and yet they get passed. Many teachers at Villa Park have become corrupted based on past lack of raises thus they have become frsutrated and defiant to teaching. Also i feel it is imporatnt to note there is no organization like the PTA for parents like myself to speak and be heard, why do you think that is? the group they call PFSA is a joke, they plan baking events and are made up solely 100% of mothers, no dads, no business people, simply mothers who plan baking events to raise money for grad night, it is not a group to listen to parents concerns about the teaching at the school. This school is a sham, they ride on the backs of a few honor students to bring thier school teaching rates above average but if you really looked at the average student grades you would find villa park students are poorly taught.