Southern Illinois News

White students, constituting 75% or 123 of Brookport Elementary School's total student population of 164, accounted for 18 out of the 20 total suspensions (90%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per seven students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Brookport Elementary School's 15 Black students, who make up 9.1% of the school population, received one suspension. This translates to an average of one suspension per 15 Black students, which is definitively lower than that of white students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 20 total suspensions at Brookport Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, eight were in-school suspensions and 12 out-of-school suspensions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Brookport Elementary School reported 29 students - equivalent to 17.7% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 51 students, or 30.8% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

White students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 31.7% of all students who were 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
Black	15	1	0.07
White	123	18	0.15