NW Illinois News

Forrestville Valley Community Unit School District 221 reported 137 suspensions or expulsions for the 2021-22 school year, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

According to the report, the district expelled or suspended 137 students during the year. This equates to 19 percent of the 732 students enrolled.

Students were expelled for one incident with violence that caused physical injury, 12 incidents with alcohol and tobacco, seven incidents with drugs, three incidents with a dangerous weapon, other than a firearm.

The district reported that most in-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were 50. For 47 incidents, students were suspended for one to two days.

Boy students received 93 suspensions, while 44 girls were suspended.

There were 71 elementary or middle school students, and 66 high school students suspended in 2021-22 school year.

The district reported that most out-of-school suspensions were given for unspecified reasons, of which there were 64. There were 12 incidents of tobacco. For 49 incidents, students were suspended for two to three days.

Illinois ranks as the 5th state in terms of the overall number of schools and student enrollment among all states.

Illinois lawmakers enacted laws in 2015 to restrict schools from disciplining a disproportionate number of Black and minority students out of school and into the criminal justice system, often for minor misbehavior.

	In-school Suspension	Out-of-school Suspension
Alcohol	0	0
Violence with injury	0	1
Violence without injury	0	0
Drug offenses	0	7
Firearm	0	0
Other dangerous weapons	0	3
Tobacco	0	12
Other reason	50	64
Total	50	87

	In-school Suspension	Out-of-school Suspension
One day or less	3	0
1-2 days	47	20
2-3 days	0	49
3-4 days	0	10
4-10 days	0	8
More than 10 days	0	0