IL Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders (2023) | Institute of Education Sciences
IL Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders (2023) | Institute of Education Sciences
During the same period, Centennial High School's 432 white students, who make up 31.1% of the school population, received eight suspensions. This translates to an average of one suspension per 54 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students.
Multiracial students at Centennial High School behaved worse than whites, but better than Blacks, with 20 suspensions for 107 students in the 2021-22 school year - an average of roughly one suspension per five multiracial students.
In contrast, Asian students, who make up 9.4% of the student body at Centennial High School, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of one suspension per 131 Asian students, totaling one suspension. This rate is definitively lower than that of Black students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.
Of the 191 total suspensions at Centennial High School in the 2021-22 school year, four were in-school suspensions and 187 out-of-school suspensions. Instead of opting for traditional suspensions or expulsions for some cases, the school administration decided to relocate 66 students to alternative educational settings.
According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 54 student suspensions at Centennial High School were for violence-related offenses and 14 for those including drugs.
The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 54 cases - 28.3% of the total infractions.
During the 2021-22 school year, Centennial High School reported 505 students - equivalent to 36.4% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 712 students, or 51.3% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.
Black students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 56.4% of all students who were chronically truant, and 66.9% of the 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hispanic | 146 | 14 | 0.1 |
| Black | 569 | 148 | 0.26 |
| Asian | 131 | 1 | 0.01 |
| Multiracial | 107 | 20 | 0.19 |
| White | 432 | 8 | 0.02 |
Alerts Sign-up