Steven Isoye State Board of Education Chairperson | Official Website
Steven Isoye State Board of Education Chairperson | Official Website
During the same period, David L. Rahn Junior High School's 183 white students, who make up 85.1% of the school population, received 37 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per five white students, which is definitively lower than that of Hispanic students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.
Of the 50 total suspensions at David L. Rahn Junior High School in the 2021-22 school year, 27 were in-school suspensions and 23 out-of-school suspensions.
According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, two student suspensions at David L. Rahn Junior High School were for violence-related offenses.
During the 2021-22 school year, David L. Rahn Junior High School reported 10 students - equivalent to 4.8% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 42 students, or 19.6% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.
Hispanic students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 44% 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hispanic | 23 | 9 | 0.39 |
| White | 183 | 37 | 0.2 |
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