Will County Gazette

Black students, constituting 52.3% or 181 of Carl Sandburg Elementary School's total student population of 346, accounted for 12 out of the 15 total suspensions (80%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per 15 students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Carl Sandburg Elementary School's 116 Hispanic students, who make up 33.5% of the school population, received three suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 39 Hispanic students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 15 total suspensions at Carl Sandburg Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, one was in-school suspension and 14 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 11 student suspensions at Carl Sandburg Elementary School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 11 cases - 73.3% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Carl Sandburg Elementary School reported 85 students - equivalent to 24.6% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 106 students, or 30.6% 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 27.8% 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
Hispanic	116	3	0.03
Black	181	12	0.07