Metro East Sun

Multiracial students, constituting 6.4% or 10 of Hartford Elementary School's total student population of 157, accounted for two out of the four total suspensions (50%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging one suspension per five students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Hartford Elementary School's 134 white students, who make up 85.4% of the school population, received two suspensions. This translates to an average of one suspension per 67 white students, which is definitively lower than that of multiracial students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the four total suspensions at Hartford Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, all of them were in-school suspensions.

In addition, 50 students, or 32.1% 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
Multiracial	10	2	0.2
White	134	2	0.01