Chief Education Officer Jason Helfer (2023) | Illinois State Board of education
Chief Education Officer Jason Helfer (2023) | Illinois State Board of education
During the same period, Erie High School's 176 white students, who make up 93.6% of the school population, received four suspensions. This translates to an average of one suspension per 44 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Hispanic students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.
Of the six total suspensions at Erie High School in the 2021-22 school year, one was in-school suspension and five out-of-school suspensions.
According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, three student suspensions at Erie High School were for violence-related offenses and two for those including drugs.
The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying three cases - 50% of the total infractions.
During the 2021-22 school year, Erie High School reported 15 students - equivalent to 8.2% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 39 students, or 20.6% 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 | 10 | 2 | 0.2 |
| White | 176 | 4 | 0.02 |
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