Southern Illinois News

Black students, constituting 52.5% or 160 of Meridian Elementary School's total student population of 305, accounted for 105 out of the 163 total suspensions (64.4%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per two students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Meridian Elementary School's 109 white students, who make up 35.7% of the school population, received 37 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per three white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 163 total suspensions at Meridian Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 120 were in-school suspensions and 43 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 51 student suspensions at Meridian Elementary School were for violence-related offenses and three for those including drugs.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 51 cases - 31.3% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Meridian Elementary School reported 157 students - equivalent to 51.4% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 160 students, or 52.6% 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	160	105	0.66
Multiracial	33	21	0.64
White	109	37	0.34