Rockford Sun

Black students, constituting 28% or 101 of Clifford P. Carlson Elementary School's total student population of 361, accounted for 87 out of the 128 total suspensions (68%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per student, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Clifford P. Carlson Elementary School's 137 white students, who make up 38% of the school population, received 15 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per nine white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 128 total suspensions at Clifford P. Carlson Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 71 were in-school suspensions and 57 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, 60 student suspensions at Clifford P. Carlson Elementary School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 60 cases - 46.9% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Clifford P. Carlson Elementary School reported 171 students - equivalent to 47.3% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 243 students, or 67.3% 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 60.5% of all students who were chronically truant, and 75.6% 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	85	17	0.2
Black	101	87	0.86
Multiracial	32	9	0.28
White	137	15	0.11