Kankakee Times

Black students, constituting 24.5% or 70 of Steuben Elementary School's total student population of 286, accounted for three out of the four total suspensions (75%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per 23 students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Steuben Elementary School's 180 Hispanic students, who make up 62.9% of the school population, received one suspension. This translates to an average of one suspension per 180 Hispanic students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the four total suspensions at Steuben Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, all of them were in-school suspensions.

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

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying three cases - 75% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Steuben Elementary School reported 160 students - equivalent to 56% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 148 students, or 51.8% 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 68.1% of all students who were chronically truant, and 53.3% 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	180	1	0.01
Black	70	3	0.04