DeKalb Times

Black students, constituting 23.4% or 215 of Huntley Middle School's total student population of 918, accounted for 169 out of the 259 total suspensions (65.3%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per student, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Huntley Middle School's 359 white students, who make up 39.1% of the school population, received 46 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per eight white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students.

Multiracial students at Huntley Middle School behaved worse than whites, but better than Blacks, with 21 suspensions for 61 students in the 2021-22 school year - an average of roughly one suspension per three multiracial students.

In contrast, Hispanic students, who make up 29.1% of the student body at Huntley Middle School, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of roughly one suspension per 12 Hispanic students, totaling 22 suspensions. This rate is definitively lower than that of Black students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 259 total suspensions at Huntley Middle School in the 2021-22 school year, 148 were in-school suspensions and 111 out-of-school suspensions. Instead of opting for traditional suspensions or expulsions for some cases, the school administration decided to relocate six students to alternative educational settings.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 30 student suspensions at Huntley Middle School were for offenses including drugs.

During the 2021-22 school year, Huntley Middle School reported 276 students - equivalent to 30.1% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 333 students, or 36.3% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

Black students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 56.7% of all students who were chronically truant, and 58.4% of the 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	267	22	0.08
Black	215	169	0.79
Asian	12	1	0.08
Multiracial	61	21	0.34
White	359	46	0.13