Chambana Sun

Black students, constituting 58.9% or 221 of Garden Hills Elementary School's total student population of 375, accounted for 136 out of the 159 total suspensions (85.5%) 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, Garden Hills Elementary School's 83 Hispanic students, who make up 22.1% of the school population, received four suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 21 Hispanic students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 159 total suspensions at Garden Hills Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, all of them were out-of-school suspensions. Instead of opting for traditional suspensions or expulsions for some cases, the school administration decided to relocate 17 students to alternative educational settings.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 128 student suspensions at Garden Hills Elementary School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 128 cases - 80.5% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Garden Hills Elementary School reported 190 students - equivalent to 50.6% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 223 students, or 59.4% 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 54.5% of all students who were chronically truant, and 63.2% 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	83	4	0.05
Black	221	136	0.62
Multiracial	27	14	0.52
White	29	5	0.17