Kendall County Times

Black students, constituting 10.7% or 83 of Murphy Junior High School's total student population of 777, accounted for 41 out of the 105 total suspensions (39%) 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, Murphy Junior High School's 388 white students, who make up 49.9% of the school population, received 30 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 13 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 105 total suspensions at Murphy Junior High School in the 2021-22 school year, 67 were in-school suspensions and 38 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 36 student suspensions at Murphy Junior High School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 36 cases - 34.3% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Murphy Junior High School reported 71 students - equivalent to 9.2% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 95 students, or 12.2% 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 12.4% 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	140	20	0.14
Black	83	41	0.49
Asian	115	14	0.12
White	388	30	0.08