Hope Academy Principal Mrs. Tasia Burks (2023) | Hope Academy
Hope Academy Principal Mrs. Tasia Burks (2023) | Hope Academy
During the same period, Hope Academy's 108 white students, who make up 19.1% of the school population, received 27 suspensions. This translates to an average of one suspension per four white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students.
In contrast, Hispanic students, who make up 3.9% of the student body at Hope Academy, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of roughly one suspension per seven Hispanic students, totaling three suspensions. This rate is definitively lower than that of Black students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.
Of the 269 total suspensions at Hope Academy in the 2021-22 school year, 60 were in-school suspensions and 209 out-of-school suspensions.
According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 141 student suspensions at Hope Academy were for violence-related offenses and for an offense including drugs.
The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 141 cases - 52.4% of the total infractions.
During the 2021-22 school year, Hope Academy reported 420 students - equivalent to 74.4% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 377 students, or 66.9% 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 79.7% of all students who were chronically truant, and 68.8% 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 | 22 | 3 | 0.14 |
| Black | 355 | 199 | 0.56 |
| Multiracial | 73 | 40 | 0.55 |
| White | 108 | 27 | 0.25 |
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