Will County Gazette

Hispanic students, constituting 16.3% or 84 of Walnut Trails Elementary School's total student population of 515, accounted for eight out of the 10 total suspensions (80%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per 11 students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Walnut Trails Elementary School's 372 white students, who make up 72.2% of the school population, received two suspensions. This translates to an average of one suspension per 186 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Hispanic students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 10 total suspensions at Walnut Trails Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, six were in-school suspensions and four out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, five student suspensions at Walnut Trails Elementary School were for violence-related offenses.

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

During the 2021-22 school year, Walnut Trails Elementary School reported 27 students - equivalent to 5.2% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 53 students, or 10.2% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

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	84	8	0.1
White	372	2	0.01