Rich East High School or REHS is a public four-year high school located in Park Forest, Illinois, a southern suburb of Chicago in the United States. Rich East's campus serves the cities of Park Forest, Matteson, Olympia Fields, Chicago Heights and Richton Park. It is a part of Rich Township District 227, which also includes Rich South High School and Rich Central High School.HistoryRich East High school was the first of its district to open in 1952, but was originally called Rich Township High school. This was the school's name until the construction of Rich Central High School in 1961 and Rich South High School in 1972, which now make up the three schools of district 227. Rich East was originally held in the Faith United Protestant Church until Park Forest gave them the open land to build the school. The land was only open and given to them for free by the villagers of Park Forest because it was mostly composed of clay, which is not suitable to build upon.Many old students remember that for many years, cement had to be pumped underneath the school's main gym so that it would not sink. The Media Center, in the front of the building was also built on unstable ground and after several days of rain, water would rise up into the carpet, making it difficult to breathe. The head librarian would scramble to save books.There is a lagoon on the campus. In nice weather, students would sit around it during lunch times. In the winter, if it froze enough, the surface would be smoothed and people would ice skate on it. The school yearbook was named "The Lagoon" after it.Rich East High School was originally predominately white with some African Americans. Teachers were also very strict about boys and girls showing affection in school; if a boy and a girl were holding hands, some teachers would simply tell them to stop and others would pull their hands apart.