DeKalb Times

Black students, constituting 54.1% or 180 of Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School's total student population of 333, accounted for 61 out of the 75 total suspensions (81.3%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per three students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School's 78 white students, who make up 23.4% of the school population, received seven suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 11 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students.

Hispanic students at Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School behaved worse than whites, but better than Blacks, with five suspensions for 40 students in the 2021-22 school year - an average of one suspension per eight Hispanic students.

In contrast, multiracial students, who make up 8.4% of the student body at Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of one suspension per 14 multiracial students, totaling two suspensions. This rate is definitively lower than that of Black students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 75 total suspensions at Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, six were in-school suspensions and 69 out-of-school suspensions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School reported 103 students - equivalent to 31% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 143 students, or 42.8% 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 45.1% of all students who were chronically truant, and 54.3% 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	40	5	0.13
Black	180	61	0.34
Multiracial	28	2	0.07
White	78	7	0.09