Vice Chair of the Board Dr. Donna S. Leak (2023) | Illinois State Board of education
Vice Chair of the Board Dr. Donna S. Leak (2023) | Illinois State Board of education
During the same period, Sarah Atwater Denman Elementary School Site 2's 431 white students, who make up 80.3% of the school population, received 25 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 17 white students, which is definitively lower than that of multiracial students.
In contrast, Black students, who make up 5.2% of the student body at Sarah Atwater Denman Elementary School Site 2, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of one suspension per 28 Black students, totaling one suspension. This rate is definitively lower than that of multiracial students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.
Of the 39 total suspensions at Sarah Atwater Denman Elementary School Site 2 in the 2021-22 school year, one was in-school suspension and 38 out-of-school suspensions.
According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 14 student suspensions at Sarah Atwater Denman Elementary School Site 2 were for violence-related offenses.
The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 14 cases - 35.9% of the total infractions.
During the 2021-22 school year, Sarah Atwater Denman Elementary School Site 2 reported 34 students - equivalent to 6.3% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 159 students, or 29.6% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.
Multiracial students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 33.3% of all students who were 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black | 28 | 1 | 0.04 |
| Multiracial | 58 | 13 | 0.22 |
| White | 431 | 25 | 0.06 |
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