Kendall County Times

Hispanic students, constituting 30.4% or 181 of Lakewood Creek Elementary School's total student population of 596, accounted for 10 out of the 19 total suspensions (52.6%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per 18 students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Lakewood Creek Elementary School's 304 white students, who make up 51% of the school population, received three suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 101 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Hispanic students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 19 total suspensions at Lakewood Creek Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, nine were in-school suspensions and 10 out-of-school suspensions.

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

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying seven cases - 36.8% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Lakewood Creek Elementary School reported 61 students - equivalent to 10.3% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 93 students, or 15.6% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

Hispanic students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 18.8% of all students who were chronically truant, and 22.4% 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	181	10	0.06
Black	71	6	0.08
White	304	3	0.01