West Central Reporter

Black students, constituting 11.4% or 35 of Macomb Junior High School's total student population of 307, accounted for 30 out of the 112 total suspensions (26.8%) 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, Macomb Junior High School's 235 white students, who make up 76.5% of the school population, received 68 suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per three white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students.

In contrast, Hispanic students, who make up 3.6% of the student body at Macomb Junior High School, had the lowest suspension ratio with an average of one suspension per 11 Hispanic students, totaling one suspension. This rate is definitively lower than that of Black students, establishing them as the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 112 total suspensions at Macomb Junior High School in the 2021-22 school year, one was in-school suspension and 111 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, 55 student suspensions at Macomb Junior High School were for violence-related offenses and for an offense including drugs.

The most common infraction causing suspension was violence offenses, tallying 55 cases - 49.1% of the total infractions.

During the 2021-22 school year, Macomb Junior High School reported 71 students - equivalent to 23.1% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 117 students, or 38% 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 54.8% of all students who were chronically truant, and 59.5% 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	11	1	0.09
Black	35	30	0.86
Multiracial	16	11	0.69
White	235	68	0.29