Rockford Sun

Black students, constituting 24.2% or 111 of Gregory Elementary School's total student population of 459, accounted for 47 out of the 96 total suspensions (49%) 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, Gregory Elementary School's 219 Hispanic students, who make up 47.7% of the school population, received 12 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 18 Hispanic students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students.

In contrast, multiracial students, who make up 5.4% of the student body at Gregory Elementary School, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of one suspension per 25 multiracial students, totaling one suspension. This rate is definitively lower than that of Black students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 96 total suspensions at Gregory Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 12 were in-school suspensions and 84 out-of-school suspensions. Instead of opting for traditional suspensions or expulsions for some cases, the school administration decided to relocate four students to alternative educational settings.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 35 student suspensions at Gregory Elementary School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 35 cases - 36.5% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Gregory Elementary School reported 164 students - equivalent to 35.8% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 274 students, or 59.7% 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 58.9% of all students who were chronically truant, and 80.7% 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	12	0.05
Black	111	47	0.42
Multiracial	25	1	0.04
White	79	36	0.46