Southern Illinois News

Black students, constituting 11.2% or 20 of Century Junior/Senior High School's total student population of 178, accounted for four out of the 14 total suspensions (28.6%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging one suspension per five students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Century Junior/Senior High School's 144 white students, who make up 80.9% of the school population, received 10 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 14 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 14 total suspensions at Century Junior/Senior High School in the 2021-22 school year, 13 were in-school suspensions and one out-of-school suspension.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, five student suspensions at Century Junior/Senior High School were for violence-related offenses and for an offense including drugs.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying five cases - 35.7% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Century Junior/Senior High School reported 16 students - equivalent to 8.8% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 60 students, or 33.5% 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
Black	20	4	0.2
White	144	10	0.07