Macon Reporter

Black students, constituting 74.6% or 299 of American Dreamer STEM Academy's total student population of 401, accounted for 90 out of the 107 total suspensions (84.1%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per three students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, American Dreamer STEM Academy's 56 white students, who make up 14% of the school population, received six suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per nine white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 107 total suspensions at American Dreamer STEM Academy in the 2021-22 school year, all of them were out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 74 student suspensions at American Dreamer STEM Academy were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 74 cases - 69.2% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, American Dreamer STEM Academy reported 159 students - equivalent to 39.6% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 150 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 43.1% of all students who were chronically truant.

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
Black	299	90	0.3
Multiracial	42	11	0.26
White	56	6	0.11