Original Research by School Decision on School District 428 Iyc-hrb
School District 428 IYC-HRB is an alternative school operated by the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice within a state juvenile correctional facility in Harrisburg. This is not a residential district families enroll in by standard address-based assignment; it serves youth in the custody of the department.
The school enrolls a small population of students in grades nine through twelve. The student body is predominantly Black, with a smaller number of white students and a very small Hispanic population. The enrollment breaks heavily toward the ninth-grade cohort, with progressively fewer students in tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. This distribution is consistent with how alternative and correctional education settings typically operate, with intake concentrated at entry and transition out at exit.
No state testing data or graduation rates were available for this entity. This gap reflects the nature of the school and the population it serves; students in juvenile justice settings do not participate in the statewide assessment system administered to mainstream public school students. Similarly, metrics around free-or-reduced-price lunch, special education identification rates, English learner counts, and other standard school-level data points were not reported, which again reflects that this is a special-purpose facility outside the regular public school accountability framework.
The school is located on West Poplar Street in Harrisburg, a small Saline County county seat shaped by its coal-mining past and now serving as gateway to the Shawnee National Forest. The town's economy centers on the regional hospital, Southeastern Illinois College, and retail. Housing values in the Harrisburg area are below the state average and have declined modestly in recent years. The town itself has been slowly contracting since its population peak in the early coal era, though civic investment in downtown spaces and local events has brought modest activity back to the historic square. Harrisburg remains a place with an older housing stock and limited new residential development.
Parents and guardians of youth in state custody who want to understand educational programming, services, or outcomes at this facility should contact the school or the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice directly, as standard public school data does not capture the programming or results of education within correctional settings.
See more original research from School Decision →