West Central Reporter

Black students, constituting 8% or 10 of Bushnell-Prairie City Junior High School's total student population of 125, accounted for nine out of the 33 total suspensions (27.3%) 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, Bushnell-Prairie City Junior High School's 108 white students, who make up 86.4% of the school population, received 23 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per five white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 33 total suspensions at Bushnell-Prairie City Junior High School in the 2021-22 school year, five were in-school suspensions and 28 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 18 student suspensions at Bushnell-Prairie City Junior High School were for violence-related offenses.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 18 cases - 54.5% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Bushnell-Prairie City Junior High School reported 38 students - equivalent to 30% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 40 students, or 31.9% 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 80% of all students who were chronically truant, and 66.7% 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
Black	10	9	0.9
White	108	23	0.21