Chambana Sun

Hispanic students, constituting 4.9% or 39 of Middletown Prairie Elementary's total student population of 800, accounted for three out of the seven total suspensions (42.9%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging one suspension per 13 students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Middletown Prairie Elementary's 700 white students, who make up 87.5% of the school population, received two suspensions. This translates to an average of one suspension per 350 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Hispanic students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the seven total suspensions at Middletown Prairie Elementary in the 2021-22 school year, all of them were out-of-school suspensions.

In addition, 125 students, or 15.6% 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
Hispanic	39	3	0.08
Black	11	1	0.09
Multiracial	37	1	0.03
White	700	2	0