“I have to meet this guy and have sex with him. If I don’t, then he and his friends are going to rape my little sister,” a student at Frank Ballou High School in Ward 8’s Congress Heights told her teacher. The teacher was trying to persuade her to stay after school, so he could help her improve her grades.

“She said that effortlessly, without any real emotion,” recalled the teacher, who requested anonymity. There wasn’t any reason to disbelieve her. “I wanted to call the police [but] she was worried about repercussions for her. So, I didn’t do anything.”

Inside Ballou’s gleaming $140 million structure, there are hundreds of stories from students who could be modern-day models for Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” Situated among private homes and rental apartments, Ballou’s ecosystem is marked by stunning toxicity: high poverty, double-digit unemployment, gun violence, domestic violence and child neglect.