Rockford Sun

Black students, constituting 30.5% or 114 of C. Henry Bloom Elementary School's total student population of 374, accounted for 44 out of the 63 total suspensions (69.8%) 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, C. Henry Bloom Elementary School's 125 white students, who make up 33.4% of the school population, received two suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 63 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 63 total suspensions at C. Henry Bloom Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 18 were in-school suspensions and 45 out-of-school suspensions. Instead of opting for traditional suspensions or expulsions for some cases, the school administration decided to relocate one student to alternative educational settings.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 14 student suspensions at C. Henry Bloom Elementary School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 14 cases - 22.2% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, C. Henry Bloom Elementary School reported 183 students - equivalent to 48.8% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 235 students, or 62.9% 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 64.3% of all students who were chronically truant.

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	84	4	0.05
Black	114	44	0.39
Multiracial	39	13	0.33
White	125	2	0.02