McLean County Times

Black students, constituting 28.8% or 111 of Sugar Creek Elementary School's total student population of 385, accounted for 18 out of the 31 total suspensions (58.1%) in the 2021-22 school year, averaging roughly one suspension per six students, according to the latest student discipline report by the Illinois State Board of Education.

During the same period, Sugar Creek Elementary School's 170 white students, who make up 44.2% of the school population, received three suspensions. This translates to an average of roughly one suspension per 57 white students, which is definitively lower than that of Black students, making them the best-behaved racial group in the school.

Of the 31 total suspensions at Sugar Creek Elementary School in the 2021-22 school year, 21 were in-school suspensions and 10 out-of-school suspensions.

According to the report, in the 2021-22 school year, one student suspension at Sugar Creek Elementary School was for a violence-related offense.

During the 2021-22 school year, Sugar Creek Elementary School reported 49 students - equivalent to 12.8% of its student body - as chronically truant, meaning they had a repeated pattern of unexcused lateness or missing classes. In addition, 87 students, or 22.7% 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 30% of all students who were chronically truant, and 42.9% 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	111	18	0.16
Multiracial	51	10	0.2
White	170	3	0.02