Kendall County Times

Black students, constituting 7.3% or 50 of Autumn Creek Elementary School's total student population of 688, accounted for 16 out of the 43 total suspensions (37.2%) 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, Autumn Creek Elementary School's 382 white students, who make up 55.5% of the school population, received 21 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 18 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students.

In contrast, Hispanic students, who make up 29.9% of the student body at Autumn Creek Elementary School, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of roughly one suspension per 52 Hispanic students, totaling four suspensions. This rate is definitively lower than that of Black students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Multiracial students at Autumn Creek Elementary School behaved worse than Hispanics, but better than Blacks, with two suspensions for 39 students in the 2021-22 school year - an average of roughly one suspension per 20 multiracial students.

Of the 43 total suspensions at Autumn Creek Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 32 were in-school suspensions and 11 out-of-school suspensions.

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

During the 2021-22 school year, Autumn Creek Elementary School reported 27 students - equivalent to 3.9% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 74 students, or 10.7% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

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	206	4	0.02
Black	50	16	0.32
Multiracial	39	2	0.05
White	382	21	0.05