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, Effingham High School's 646 white students, who make up 87.9% of the school population, received 99 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per seven white students, which is definitively lower than that of multiracial students.
Black students at Effingham High School behaved worse than whites, but better than multiracials, with two suspensions for 12 students in the 2021-22 school year - an average of one suspension per six Black students.
In contrast, Hispanic students, who make up 5.7% of the student body at Effingham High School, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of one suspension per 14 Hispanic students, totaling three suspensions. This rate is definitively lower than that of multiracial students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.
Of the 111 total suspensions at Effingham High School in the 2021-22 school year, 32 were in-school suspensions and 79 out-of-school suspensions. In addition to suspensions, nine students were expelled from the school. In addition to suspensions, nine students were expelled from the school.
According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, one student suspension at Effingham High School was for violence-related offenses and three for those including drugs.
During the 2021-22 school year, Effingham High School reported 114 students - equivalent to 15.5% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 158 students, or 21.5% 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 | 42 | 3 | 0.07 |
| Black | 12 | 2 | 0.17 |
| Multiracial | 18 | 7 | 0.39 |
| White | 646 | 99 | 0.15 |
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