Will County Gazette

Valley View Community Unit School District 365U reported 2,258 suspensions or expulsions for the 2021-22 school year, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

According to the report, the district expelled or suspended 2258 students during the year. This equates to 15 percent of the 15,015 students enrolled.

Students were expelled for 91 incidents with violence that caused physical injury, 570 incidents with violence without physical injury, 92 incidents with alcohol and tobacco, 139 incidents with drugs, two incidents witha dangerous weapon firearm,nine incidents with a dangerous weapon, other than a firearm.

The district reported that most in-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were 601. There were 54 incidents of violence without injury. For 683 incidents, students were suspended for one to two days.

Boy students received 1,565 suspensions, while 693 girls were suspended.

There were 1,013 elementary or middle school students, and 1,245 high school students suspended in 2021-22 school year.

The district reported that most out-of-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were 754. There were 516 incidents of violence without injury. For 816 incidents, students were suspended for one to two days.

Illinois ranks as the 5th state in terms of the overall number of schools and student enrollment among all states.

Illinois lawmakers enacted laws in 2015 to restrict schools from disciplining a disproportionate number of Black and minority students out of school and into the criminal justice system, often for minor misbehavior.

	In-school Suspension	Out-of-school Suspension
Alcohol	1	1
Violence with injury	13	78
Violence without injury	54	516
Drug offenses	40	99
Firearm	0	2
Other dangerous weapons	1	8
Tobacco	45	45
Other reason	601	754
Total	755	1503

	In-school Suspension	Out-of-school Suspension
One day or less	2	16
1-2 days	683	816
2-3 days	42	286
3-4 days	14	271
4-10 days	5	114
More than 10 days	9	0