East Central Reporter

Multiracial students, constituting 8.8% or 54 of Riddle Elementary School's total student population of 614, accounted for 18 out of the 108 total suspensions (16.7%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging one suspension per three students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Riddle Elementary School's 501 white students, who make up 81.6% of the school population, received 80 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per six white students, which is definitively lower than that of multiracial students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 108 total suspensions at Riddle Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 61 were in-school suspensions and 47 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 16 student suspensions at Riddle Elementary School were for violence-related offenses.

During the 2021-22 school year, Riddle Elementary School reported 101 students - equivalent to 16.5% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 174 students, or 28.4% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

Multiracial students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 34.9% 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	41	10	0.24
Multiracial	54	18	0.33
White	501	80	0.16