Rockford Sun

Black students, constituting 3.4% or 23 of Washington Academy's total student population of 686, accounted for two out of the seven total suspensions (28.6%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per 12 students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Washington Academy's 429 Hispanic students, who make up 62.5% of the school population, received one suspension. This translates to an average of one suspension per 429 Hispanic students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the seven total suspensions at Washington Academy in the 2021-22 school year, two were in-school suspensions and five out-of-school suspensions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Washington Academy reported 96 students - equivalent to 14% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 206 students, or 30.1% 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 62.5% 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	429	1	0
Black	23	2	0.09
Multiracial	28	1	0.04
White	199	3	0.02