IL Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders (2023) | Institute of Education Sciences
IL Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders (2023) | Institute of Education Sciences
During the same period, Dennis Elementary School's 197 white students, who make up 37% of the school population, received 52 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per four white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students.
In contrast, Hispanic students, who make up 4.7% of the student body at Dennis Elementary School, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of roughly one suspension per 13 Hispanic students, totaling two suspensions. This rate is definitively lower than that of Black students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.
Of the 244 total suspensions at Dennis Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 34 were in-school suspensions and 210 out-of-school suspensions.
According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 152 student suspensions at Dennis Elementary School were for violence-related offenses and for an offense including drugs.
The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 152 cases - 62.3% of the total infractions.
During the 2021-22 school year, Dennis Elementary School reported 184 students - equivalent to 34.5% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 199 students, or 37.4% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.
Black students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 42.6% of all students who were chronically truant, and 41.9% of the chronically absent.
In a broader context, data from the ProPublica database indicates that Black students are suspended at a rate 4.6 times higher than white students in Illinois—surpassing the already high national average rate of 3.9 times.
However, districts’ officials deny a direct link between these statistics and race. Lisa Small, the Superintendent of District 211, argues that these numbers oversimplify the situation. “Decisions are highly individualized and based on the specific behavior and are not well-suited to a simple numerical analysis,” she wrote in a statement. “They are not a statistic to us, but a developing young adult.”
Illinois ranks 12th in the nation for the highest rate of suspensions among Black students relative to their white peers.
| Race | Number of Students | Total Infractions | Infractions Per Student |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hispanic | 25 | 2 | 0.08 |
| Black | 246 | 161 | 0.65 |
| Multiracial | 60 | 29 | 0.48 |
| White | 197 | 52 | 0.26 |
Alerts Sign-up