Kankakee Times

Black students, constituting 46.3% or 290 of Kankakee Junior High School's total student population of 627, accounted for 108 out of the 148 total suspensions (73%) 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, Kankakee Junior High School's 219 Hispanic students, who make up 34.9% of the school population, received 16 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 14 Hispanic students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 148 total suspensions at Kankakee Junior High School in the 2021-22 school year, 42 were in-school suspensions and 106 out-of-school suspensions. Instead of opting for traditional suspensions or expulsions for some cases, the school administration decided to relocate three students to alternative educational settings.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 86 student suspensions at Kankakee Junior High School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 86 cases - 58.1% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Kankakee Junior High School reported 455 students - equivalent to 72.6% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 430 students, or 68.6% 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 77.2% of all students who were chronically truant, and 69.6% 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	219	16	0.07
Black	290	108	0.37
Multiracial	19	3	0.16
White	94	21	0.22