Kankakee Times

Black students, constituting 60% or 105 of Lorenzo R. Smith Elementary School's total student population of 175, accounted for 45 out of the 60 total suspensions (75%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per two students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Lorenzo R. Smith Elementary School's 50 Hispanic students, who make up 28.6% of the school population, received four suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 13 Hispanic students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 60 total suspensions at Lorenzo R. Smith Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 34 were in-school suspensions and 26 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 24 student suspensions at Lorenzo R. Smith Elementary School were for violence-related offenses and for an offense including drugs.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 24 cases - 40% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Lorenzo R. Smith Elementary School reported 99 students - equivalent to 56.6% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 100 students, or 57.4% 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 59.4% of all students who were chronically truant, and 61.8% 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	50	4	0.08
Black	105	45	0.43
Multiracial	10	11	1.1