Will County Gazette

Black students, constituting 18.1% or 65 of Bernard J. Ward Elementary School's total student population of 359, accounted for 16 out of the 20 total suspensions (80%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per four students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Bernard J. Ward Elementary School's 236 Hispanic students, who make up 65.7% of the school population, received two suspensions. This translates to an average of one suspension per 118 Hispanic students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 20 total suspensions at Bernard J. Ward Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 13 were in-school suspensions and seven out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 10 student suspensions at Bernard J. Ward Elementary School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 10 cases - 50% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Bernard J. Ward Elementary School reported 36 students - equivalent to 10.1% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 140 students, or 39% 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 16.7% of all students who were chronically truant, and 52% 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	236	2	0.01
Black	65	16	0.25