West Central Reporter

Multiracial students, constituting 10% or 69 of Jacksonville Middle School's total student population of 691, accounted for 152 out of the 625 total suspensions (24.3%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly 2.2 suspensions per student, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Jacksonville Middle School's 509 white students, who make up 73.7% of the school population, received 313 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per two white students, which is definitively lower than that of multiracial students.

Black students at Jacksonville Middle School behaved worse than whites, but better than multiracials, with 135 suspensions for 73 students in the 2021-22 school year - an average of roughly 1.8 suspensions per student.

In contrast, Hispanic students, who make up 4.3% of the student body at Jacksonville Middle School, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of roughly one suspension per two Hispanic students, totaling 13 suspensions. This rate is definitively lower than that of multiracial students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 625 total suspensions at Jacksonville Middle School in the 2021-22 school year, 206 were in-school suspensions and 419 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 185 student suspensions at Jacksonville Middle School were for violence-related offenses and three for those including drugs.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 185 cases - 29.6% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Jacksonville Middle School reported 127 students - equivalent to 18.4% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 186 students, or 26.9% of the student population, fell into the chronically absent category, a broader measure that includes all absences, excused or not.

Multiracial students were notably overrepresented in these statistics, comprising 28.6% of all students who were chronically truant, and 40.7% 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	30	13	0.43
Black	73	135	1.85
Multiracial	69	152	2.2
White	509	313	0.61